Photo story - Scaling up emergency health services in eastern Ukraine: the ABCDE of trauma care

Trauma care, as an area of essential expertise for saving lives and protecting people from disabilities, is vital in eastern Ukraine’s conflict affected areas. Accordingly, the WHO Health Emergencies Programme provides state-of-the-art knowledge and experience to upgrade the skills of health care professionals so they are better enabled to treat injured patients and more confident in their interventions.

WHO Advanced Trauma Care Training (ATCT) offers a standardized ABCDE (Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure) approach for the treatment of injured patients that allows for saving precious time and capitalizing on teamwork to ensure optimal treatment outcomes.

This photo series features the faces and voices of the primary beneficiaries of the Advanced Trauma Care Training held in Mariupol, Donetsk region from 24–26 June 2019. Over 30 general and trauma surgeons, anaesthesiologists and emergency health care professionals learned and practiced new skills in managing patients with trauma. The participants add to those – over 120 – already trained by WHO: a specialized workforce that can make a difference between life and death in critical situations.

The training was organized with financial support from the Government of Austria and UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).