GBMC Sonographer Holding Online Fundraiser To Send Medicine To Ukrainian Families
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- A Greater Baltimore Medical Center sonographer is starting a fundraiser over Mother's Day weekend to send urgently needed medicine to a city in Western Ukraine.
"We want to help women and children on the ground to receive the medical care they need," said Yana Karp.
Karp is originally from Ukraine moved to the U.S. in 1989 and has worked at GBMC for 25 years.
The fundraiser is being held to send medicine to the city of Uzhhorod, which sits on the border with Slovankia, where Karp says 60,000 refugees have arrived and 80% of them are women, small children and elderly people.
"There's a humanitarian disaster because there's not enough medicine there," Karp said.
Roughly 60,000 refugees have arrived in the city that sits on the border of Slovakia. The majority of them—about 80%—are women, small children, and elderly people.
But the Uzhhorod city polyclinic doesn't have enough medicine for all the people that have arrived there
"They said, 'We don't need doctors right now, but we desperately need medicine. We have people dying because they can't receive cancer treatment, dialysis, or diabetes medicine,'" Karp said. "They would get medicine from Eastern Ukraine as well as from some central pharmaceutical companies, but now they are not getting it and they have a lot of refugees who are coming to town that need medications as well, so they have patients plus refugees that need help."
Karp was recently reunited with her cousin who fled Ukraine after the war began. She traveled through Uzhhorod on her way to the U.S. Karp was compelled to find a way to help the city after hearing about how much medical aid is needed there.
"We actually thought we can create little alliance and help GBMC help Uzhhorod clinic," Karp said.
Now, she's raising money with the Greater Baltimore Medical Center on its website to try to get the urgently needed medical help to people in Uzhhorod.
Karp plans to approach pharmaceutical companies and work with a Ukrainian medical alliance to send medicine to Ukraine.
"We need to get this medicine as soon as possible," she said.