Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Dr. Oleh Duda was in the middle of a particularly complicated surgery at a hospital in Lviv, Ukraine, when he heard explosions nearby. Moments later, the lights went out.
Duda had no choice but to keep working with only a headlamp for light. The lights came back when a generator kicked in three minutes later, but it felt like an eternity.
"These fateful minutes could have cost the patient his life," the cancer surgeon told The Associated Press.
The operation on the patient's major artery took place Nov. 15, when the city in western Ukraine suffered blackouts as Russia unleashed yet another missile barrage on the power grid, damaging nearly 50% of the country's energy facilities.
The devastating strikes, which continued last week and plunged the country into darkness once again, strained and disrupted the health care system, already battered by years of corruption, mismanagement, the COVID-19 pandemic and nine months of war.
Scheduled operations are being postponed; patient records are unavailable because of internet outages; and paramedics have had to use flashlights to examine patients in darkened apartments.
The World Health Organization said last week that Ukraine's health system is facing "its darkest days in the war so far," amid the growing energy crisis, the onset of cold winter weather and other challenges.
"This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine," the WHO's regional director for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, said in a statement.
He predicted that 2 million to 3 million more people could leave their homes in search of warmth and safety, and "will face unique health challenges, including respiratory infections such as COVID-19, pneumonia and influenza."
Last week, Kyiv's Heart Institute posted on its Facebook page a video of surgeons operating on a child's heart with the only light coming from headlamps and a battery-powered flashlight.
"Rejoice, Russians, a child is on the table and during an operation the lights have gone completely off," Dr. Boris Todurov, director of the institute in the capital, said in the video. "We will now turn on the generator -- unfortunately, it will take a few minutes."
Attacks have hit hospitals and outpatient clinics in southeastern Ukraine, too. The WHO said in a statement last week that they have verified at least 703 attacks between Feb. 24, when Russian troops rolled into Ukraine, and Nov. 23.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations that it targets civilian facilities. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again insisted last week that Russia is targeting only sites "directly or indirectly related to military power."
But just last week, a strike on a maternity ward in a hospital in eastern Ukraine killed a newborn and heavily wounded two doctors. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, two people were killed after the Russian forces shelled an outpatient clinic.
In Lviv, Duda said the explosions were so close to the hospital that "the walls were shaking," and doctors and patients had to go down to the shelter in the basement -- something that happens every time an air raid siren sounds.
The hospital, which specializes in treating cancer, performed only 10 out of 40 operations scheduled for that day.
In the recently retaken southern city of Kherson, without power after the Russian retreat, paralyzed elevators are a real challenge for paramedics.
They have to carry immobile patients all the way down the stairs of apartment buildings, and then bring them up again to operating rooms.
Across Kherson, where it starts to get dark after 4 p.m. in late November, doctors are using headlamps, phone lights and flashlights. In some hospitals, key equipment no longer works.
Last Tuesday, Russian strikes on the southern city wounded 13-year-old Artur Voblikov, and doctors had to amputate his arm. Medical workers carried the teenager through the dark stairwells of a children's hospital to an operating room on the sixth floor.
"The breathing machines don't work, the X-ray machines don't work. ... There is only one portable ultrasound machine and we carry it around constantly," said Dr. Volodymyr Malishchuk, head of surgery at a children's hospital in Kherson.
The generator the children's hospital uses broke down last week, leaving the facility without any form of power for several hours. Doctors are wrapping newborns in blankets because there's no heat, said Dr. Olga Pilyarska, deputy head of intensive care.
The lack of heat makes operating on patients difficult, said Dr. Maya Mendel, at the same hospital. "No one will put a patient on an operating table when temperatures are below zero," she said.
Health Minister Viktor Liashko said on Friday that there are no plans to shut down any of country's hospitals, no matter how bad the situation gets, but the authorities will "optimize the use of space and accumulate everything that's necessary in smaller areas" to make heating easier.
Liashko said that diesel or gas generators have been provided to all Ukrainian hospitals, and in the coming weeks an additional 1,100 generators sent by the country's Western allies will be delivered to the hospitals as well. Currently, hospitals have enough fuel to last seven days, the minister said.
Additional reserve generators are still badly needed, the minister added. "The generators are designed to work for a short period of time -- three to four hours," but power outages can last up to three days, Liashko said.
In the recently recaptured territories, the medical system is reeling from months of Russian occupation.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Russian forces of shutting down medical facilities in the Kherson region and looting medical equipment -- even the ambulances, "literally everything."
Dr. Olha Kobevko, who has recently returned from the retaken areas of Kherson after delivering humanitarian aid there, echoed the president's remarks in an interview.
"The Russians stole even towels, blankets and bandages from medical facilities," Kobevko said.
In Kyiv, the majority of the hospitals are functioning as usual, while relying on generators part of the time.
Smaller private practices and dentist clinics, in the meantime, are having a hard time keeping their doors open for patients.
Dr. Viktor Turakevich, a dentist in Kyiv, said he has to reschedule even urgent appointments, because power outages in his clinic last for at least four hours a day, and a generator he ordered will take weeks to arrive.
"Every doctor has to answer a question about who they will take in first," Turakevich said.
Power outages have also made it difficult to access online patients' records, and the Health Ministry's system that stores all the data has been unavailable, said Kobevko, who works in the western city of Chernivtsy.
Duda, the cancer surgeon from Lviv, said that three doctors and several nurses from his hospital left to treat Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.
"The war has affected every doctor in Ukraine, be it in the west or in the east, and the level of pain we're facing every day is hard to measure," Duda said.
------
Mednick reported from Kherson, Ukraine. Karmanau and Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar – as authorities continue investigating potential connections to the Indian government.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
RCMP say human remains found in a rural area in central Saskatchewan may have been there for a decade or more.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.