Doctors and volunteers pack medical supplies to send to Ukraine

 

GERMANTOWN, Wis. (CBS 58) --- Doctors and volunteers in Wisconsin spent Saturday packing and sorting medical supply donations. The shipments will go to Ukraine to aid military and community hospitals during the ongoing war with Russia.

Dr. Nataliya Uboha is an oncologist at UW Carbone Cancer Center. She is involved in the efforts to get resources to Ukraine and she says the effort is personal. Dr. Uboha up in Lviv, Ukraine has been living in the U.S. for more than 25 years. She came here by herself so the majority of her family has been in Ukraine all these years.

"When the war started, we really worked hard on getting my family over here," she said. Keeping her family safe is top of mind but she also wants to do her part to get resources to her home country, including getting involved in a medical drive for Ukraine.

Wisconsin Ukrainians Inc. and the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America are collecting medical supplies to send to Ukraine.
Dr. Uboha has been involved with the effort and so has her husband Dr. Douglas Davis.

On Saturday, volunteers spent the day sorting and boxing countless supplies.

"It’s a combination of volunteers that don't have a medical background, most from the Rotary of Milwaukee and Madison and then a lot of these include medical colleagues from across the Wisconsin area because there is some level of medical knowledge that is needed to properly sort this," said Davis.

Dr. Davis says the need for these supplies is on-going and various partners came together to make this possible. Supplies gathered at the Germantown warehouse will be joined with supplies gathered in Chicago before it gets shipped out.

"They’ve got about 50 tons they think will be ready in Chicago. We think we can provide maybe another 20-25 tons," said Davis.
Organizers expect this to be an on-going effort and say more volunteers will be needed in the future.