At 5 p.m. on Saturday, the van at Hofheim Hospital is packed to the rafters and Vasilyi Savcin and his driver, Nicolai Pavluk, are getting ready for the return trip to Lemberg (Lviv).

The boxes contain bandages, infusion systems and material for large-area wound closure using vacuum.

"The hospitals are full, we work around the clock," reports Savcin, chief physician of a burns clinic at Hospital Number 8, now named after Saint Luke.

Wounded from other parts of the country would be brought to the city, which was still untouched by direct fighting.

The material is also forwarded to Kyiv and other cities.

Bernhard Biener

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Hochtaunus district.

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Standing with him is Klaus Exner, plastic surgeon and former chief physician at the Markus Hospital in Frankfurt.

For ten years, Exner has been flying regularly to Lemberg to operate on children and adults with burns, tumors or a weak eyelid.

He also offered training for the Ukrainian colleagues.

Through these relief efforts, Exner became friends with Savcin.

He is also regularly on the road in Myanmar and other developing countries.

Basic equipment for first aid

With the association Medical Intervention Team of the Frankfurt ENT doctor Barun Sarkar and Pro Interplast Seligenstadt, with whom Exner works together on such operations, he has now also organized the medical material.

The practice Plastic Surgery Frankfurt Hochtaunus, for which Exner works, is also there.

He was only in Lemberg in November and wanted to go back in April.

The relief campaign is also supported by the Varisano clinics in Frankfurt-Main-Taunus, as the hospitals in Höchst, Bad Soden and Hofheim are now called.

"We have put together a delivery from our warehouse with the basic equipment for first aid," says authorized officer Helmut Krechel, who also loads the boxes.

Savcin and Pavluk left Lemberg in western Ukraine on Friday morning, with five mothers and their children on board.

They dropped her off in Prague and then continued on to Frankfurt.

At the Polish border there is a special corridor for aid organizations, says the doctor.

That's why you only had to wait there for seven hours.

On Sunday afternoon, the two will be back in Lemberg as planned.

After all, you have to go back to work on Monday.

Savcin says thank you very much.

"If we win, we'll invite you all," he says.