Tenby Powell reports from Ukraine where a fleet of New Zealand ambulances can now start providing assistance.
An epic journey that started mid-last year with a phone call to St John Ambulance from a beleaguered Kharkiv, has ended with seven decommissioned New Zealand ambulances crossing the Polish border into Ukraine early one morning this week.
The ambulances left New Zealand on May 4and a combined Ukrainian, US and NZ team retrieved them from the port at Antwerp, Belgium, last Thursday.
The 2500 km drive from Antwerp to Kyiv took us via Hamburg, Germany, to fill the vehicles with medical aid from charity Kiwi KARE partner UA Never Alone, a great bunch of displaced Ukrainians who run a big, professionally managed, humanitarian hub.
Over the next three weeks the ambulances will be fully serviced by our Kyiv based partner, UA Day by Day, before handing them over to medical units and Red Zone hospitals.
I must say, the servicing will be minimum: A couple of battery replacements, one thermostat, and an oil change each. The vehicles went like a dream and it's testimony to the high level of maintenance by St John NZ.
The plan was always to keep one or two within the Kiwi KARE fleet as mobile health clinics to staff with doctors and nurses in newly liberated areas. I sincerely hope we can keep to that plan, however we are a reasonably big beast to run now and this all takes resources, none the least of which is funds to run all our vehicles.
If you feel you can, please donate by clicking on this Givealittle link.
Here’s a snippet of the trip as we arrived in Poznan, Poland, en route to Warsaw - covered by the English language news service in Poland.
Thanks for all your amazing support New Zealand and friends around the world.
* Tenby Powell is Director of charity Kiwi KARE (Kiwi Aid & Refugee Evacuation).
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