Manchester medics set up field hospital in Ukraine to help refugees

UK-Med volunteers are coordinating with the UN "to be as safe as possible," Tom Godfrey said

A team of volunteer medics has arrived on the Polish-Ukrainian border "keen to get in and be part of the solution" to help those injured in the conflict.

Five medics from UK-Med, a frontline medical aid charity based in Manchester, are looking to establish a field hospital to help refugees.

Operations director Tom Godfrey said "being able to move around as the situation evolves is important".

He said: "Increasingly we expect to see trauma injuries and battle wounds."

The team hopes to get as far east in Ukraine as possible from Lviv towards Vinnytsia "to be able to be active where the needs are greatest," Mr Godfrey said.

"Their needs are huge, there's between 100,000 - 150,000 people coming over [the border] each day," he said.

"On the Polish side there's a load of help available but what we're seeing is the people coming out are in increasingly needy situations.

"There's thousands of women and children who've left their husbands and fathers behind waiting to get through."

Between 100,000 - 150,000 people coming over Polish-Ukrainian border each day

The team expects to deal with "a mixture of needs" Mr Godfrey said, including "general health needs of a population that's tired and on the move, exhausted and exposed".

The UK-Med volunteers are coordinating with the UN and other agencies "to be as safe as possible," Mr Godfrey said.

He said funding is important as "the more clinicians that we can bring in, the bigger the impact that we can have, so it's great that the world is pulling together".