Rescue workers who helped transport a group of Ukrainian children to hospitals to undergo life-saving cancer treatment were praised for “incredible teamwork”.
More than 50 staff were involved in the operation at Birmingham Airport, according to the West Midlands Ambulance Service.
The 21 children and their immediate families arrived on Sunday on a flight arranged by the UK government.
The service said it was “incredibly proud” to have been a part of the plan.
Staff from both the non-emergency patient transport service and the emergency site transported visitors from the war-torn nation to a triage center before taking the patients to their final destinations, including Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
The Government has announced the patients will be treated in an appropriate NHS hospital.
Hundreds of Ukrainians saw their medical care cut short as Russian forces besieged cities and hospitals ran out of supplies.
Many children were evacuated to Poland, from where the flight to Birmingham departed, after Polish authorities asked for help to look after them.
dr Martin English, a consulting oncologist from Birmingham Children’s Hospital who was traveling on the plane with the children, said they were doing “as well as can be expected given the trauma they have endured”.
He said: “I would hope for a break [of treatment] of a few weeks – the time since the beginning of the war – has no impact on long-term care.
“But if that continued for a few more weeks and it escalated into months, the consequences could be severe for anyone who doesn’t have access to ongoing treatment.
“I am very proud that our Birmingham facility will be able to provide expert cancer care to some of these children,” he added.
The Hospital Trust’s chief medical officer, Dr. Fiona Reynolds, who triaged the children upon arrival, said her team was proud to be able to support the children.
“We have some of the best clinicians in the world and are therefore able to offer even a small number of children the cancer care they so desperately need at a time when they are not only ill but also faced with the devastation in their country. is the least we can do.”
A spokesman for the Ambulance Service praised “incredible teamwork from so many NHS staff to get everything sorted so quickly”.
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