The main departments of the Ukrainian National Special Childrenʼs Hospital Okhmatdyt, damaged by a Russian missile attack, will be able to resume work in 1-2 months, but the full restoration of the clinic will take at least six months.
General director of the hospital, Volodymyr Zhovnir, stated this on the air of the news telethon.
"I really hope that, of course, not in the same mode as we worked before, but Okhmatdyt will be able to resume work in a month or two. That is, the main departments that provided medical care before this attack will resume work. Full recovery will take at least half a year," Zhovnir said.
He added that the hospital has already resumed "acute dialysis", but equipment is needed to restore the operation of the dialysis unit. It was the dialysis building that suffered the most from the rocket attack — half of the building collapsed.
According to Zhovnir, the rocket attack destroyed or damaged equipment worth 360-400 million hryvnias. And these are only preliminary estimates. At least one dialysis unit is lost, an old surgical block is in very poor condition, and another six-story building is missing.
As of July 16, the government has allocated 100 million hryvnias for the reconstruction of Okhmatdyt and plans to increase this amount, while charitable organizations and businesses have donated 800 million hryvnias for the reconstruction. The hospital has already identified a reconstruction company.
- Okhmatdyt is the largest childrenʼs hospital in Ukraine, where more than 20 thousand children are treated every year. On July 8, 2024, the Russian X-101 cruise missile completely destroyed the toxicology building and damaged four more. 10 surgical departments, five oncology departments, two somatic departments, intensive care, two intensive care units, operating units, radiology and radiation therapy departments, part of the oncology and hematology laboratory (the only one in the country) were affected. At the time of the attack, there were almost 670 children and about a thousand employees in the hospital. They hid in basements, so large casualties were avoided. Two adults died (one of them is 30-year-old nephrologist Svitlana Lukyanchuk), and 32 people were injured. 8 children were hospitalized with various injuries.
- On the day of the attack on July 8, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation officially announced that the strikes on Ukraine were a response to attacks on Russian energy facilities. The agency claimed that the rockets hit the military industry and air bases, and the Ministry of Defense called the destruction of the Okhmatdyt hospital and the destruction of residential high-rise buildings "the hysteria of the Kyiv regime."
- Russian propaganda, federal channels and so-called warlords began to promote the version that the hospital was hit by an AIM-120 anti-aircraft missile of the NASAMS anti-aircraft complex or a missile from the American Patriot complex, which are protecting the capital.
- On the same day, the SBU reported that it had found fragments of a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile launched by Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers on the territory of the hospital. On July 9, the SBU showed new evidence of Russiaʼs involvement in the attack.
- Bellingcat investigators analyzed videos from social networks showing the moment of impact and the missile itself, performed 3D modeling of the missile and came to an unequivocal conclusion — the hospital was hit by an X-101.
- The UN said that "Okhmatdyt" was most likely hit by a Russian missile. There they referred to their own analysis.