Doctor heading to Ukraine to provide medical care

By Alexis Dominguez

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    PHOENIX (KPHO) — A Valley physician is heading to Ukraine to help people who need it the most. The team will go to the areas where many people have lost loved ones and entire communities were destroyed.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, millions of people have fled. Still, hundreds of thousands of people remain without access to medical care. “Many of the normal medical services and infrastructure are not available for patients or people in villages or towns because they’ve either been blown up or destroyed or the medical community has left those towns,” said Dr. Andrew Villa, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist in Chandler.

A week from now, he and a team of medical staff will be in the areas near Kyiv providing basic medical attention. “We’re going to go there and set up primary care clinics and trauma care clinics and help the people best way we can,” he said.

Dr. Villa is preparing himself for the devastation as violence in Ukraine escalates and ravages cities and towns. “There have been over 400 hospitals and clinics that have been destroyed so the infrastructure for the medical community has deteriorated a lot,” he said.

He’s been on several mission trips worldwide to render aid, but his answer for going on this trip is simple. “You have to have a heart for these people, I mean they’ve been through so much and we have so much to give here and we’re really lucky,” Dr. Villa said. “How can you not want to go there and help them that people all around the world care and they are important?”

All of this is made possible because of volunteers like Dr. Villa and donations from the community. To learn more, visit globalcareforce.org.

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