The Extremadura Health Service (SES) offers 60 hospital beds for victims of the war in Ukraine who arrive in Spain with urgent medical needs. That is the contribution made by this community within the plan agreed upon by the National Health System made up of the Ministry and the autonomous communities.
In total, Spain offers 5,000 beds in hospitals throughout the country and in Extremadura the Ministry of Health is already on alert in case this help is necessary.
At the moment, the Board does not know when the exact date of arrival of the Ukrainian refugees, mostly women, children and elderly people, will take place. Of course, they are in constant communication with the Government in case they had to make the resources available in the Extremadura region immediately.
If it were necessary to use these beds, when the Ukrainian refugees were discharged from the hospital, they could then be received in the region or in other parts of the country, depending on the needs of the moment.
These 60 beds in hospitals are added to the 60 reception places that the President of the Board, Guillermo Fernández Vara, has already alluded to, within the logistics plan in which the Government of Spain is working with the Ukrainian authorities in Spain.
Vara clarified that this is the minimum number that they have raised, although it could increase. Keep in mind that a million people have already fled Ukraine, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Acnur).
To channel the aid, the Board recommends making financial donations to the NGOs that work in the territory of the conflict
On the other hand, in terms of Extremaduran solidarity, the Board recommends channeling aid to Ukraine through economic donations to humanitarian organizations that work in the territory of the conflict.
For this, this Thursday the Ministry of Health and the Platform of the Third Sector met, with the aim that solidarity reaches Ukraine and is “effective and within the framework of the principles of good humanitarian donation”, as requested by the Extremadura Agency for International Cooperation for Development (Aexcid), which already works with the Spanish Agency for Cooperation (Aecid) of the Government of Spain.
Organizations
The Extremadura humanitarian aid organizations that are currently working in Ukraine are Ayuda en Acción, Cáritas, Coopera ONG, Red Cross, Educo, Farmamundi, Médicos del Mundo, Save the Children and Unicef.
The Board highlights that the Aecid Humanitarian Action Office (OAH), in its coordination role, is in contact with the organizations that have a presence in the area, since the ability to receive, store and manage donations in kind is Very limited today. Hence, for the moment, the economic contribution is better than the material one.
In the current situation, humanitarian aid, adds the Aexcid, must be “complementary and coordinated” so that it can arrive “urgently and efficiently” without harming the markets and local channels, while avoiding endangering the actors of humanitarian action and the environmental impact.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.