'A deeply personal issue': Germantown warehouse turns into collection site for medical supplies going to Ukraine

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Organizations from around the country are coming together to donate medical supplies to Ukraine. An effort across the Midwest is bringing together doctors from Wisconsin, Illinois and Ukraine as they collect more than 100 tons of necessities to be sent to Ukraine through Poland. 

Douglas Davis is a radiologist in Madison, Wisconsin. He met his wife when she moved to the US from Lviv in college. 

In late February, Davis' in-laws also fled Ukraine to stay with the Davis family in Madison. Even from afar, this family of doctors knew they needed to help out other doctors on the front line in Ukraine.  

Ulyana Khaba, Davis' sister-in-law, and her husband are both practicing doctors in Ukraine.  

"We’ve been working in the health care system for 15 years, both of us," said Khaba. "Using those connections we realize the field where we could be the most resourceful, and that is why we are working with UMANA." 

The Ukrainian Medical Association of North America's (UMANA) Chicago chapter has already successfully taken two cargo flights of 100 tons of medical equipment to Ukraine through a successful pipeline in Poland. 

Tired and out of space, UMANA is also working with groups in Wisconsin, including Wisconsin Ukrainians and Help Heroes. Patriot Transportation in Germantown has offered its large open warehouse space to be a place where people around the Midwest, and the country, can drop off medical supplies. 

"His is for surgical cautery, so this could be a very high value item," said Davis, showing CBS 58 some of the supplies already collected. What you would need in a trauma surgical suite, and the after care for that, that’s what’s needed. There’s a critical need for combat tourniquets." 

All types of front line and operating room supplies are needed to help both soldiers and civilians. 

While just a pallet of medical supplies have already been collected for the next drop-off, the groups anticipate 200 pallets to leave the US in just a couple of weeks. 

Because of Khaba's contact in the medical field in Ukraine, the groups have heard that the supplies arrived and that they're helping. 

"It’s really remarkable to see the people’s efforts over here. You can see it arriving on the other side, it’s getting into the hands of the people who need it the most," said Davis. 

Patriot Transportation will also help the humanitarians get the items from Germantown to Chicago, a process that will require a lot of time and volunteers over the next couple of weeks. And for Davis and his family, they plan to keep doing it until the war is over.