The Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC) and the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine (FCBM) of the University of Algarve have already started to provide free consultations for psychological and medical support to refugees from Ukraine, in a recently created solidarity clinic that, in the future , will also benefit vulnerable Algarve residents.
The consultations that are being made available aim to «provide clinical, psychological and emotional support, as well as providing medical evaluations, free of charge, to the community that arrives in Portugal as a refugee from the war with Russia and to Ukrainians who are already in Portugal».
The ABC even hired the doctoral student Valeriya Boshernitsan, a Ukrainian who has lived in the Algarve for almost a decade, to serve as a bridge with refugees and the community of this country in the Algarve.
«What we are doing, together with FCBM and in collaboration with the group of volunteers V+ and Associação Académica, is to provide the creation of a clinic that will provide psychological support and medical support in various specialties, starting with refugees coming from the war in Ukraine", he told Sul Informação Nuno Marques, director of ABC.
«This clinic, in addition to monitoring refugees over time and interconnecting with primary health care, or even hospitals, in our region, will later provide this type of care to Portuguese people in need, who are identified by Social Security as being in need of this type of support, completely free of charge», he added.
In other words, this is «the beginning of a broader project, which has a social nature behind it and aims to provide complementary support to our SNS in this area. In this way, we were able, completely free of charge, to have specialists from various areas available to support those who need it most».
This was, moreover, a project «that we were already putting together», which explains how quickly the partners managed to put it into operation.
«We have a doctor who was trained here at the Faculty of Medicine setting up the clinic and who was already treating this entire joint. We just rushed the launch, in order to provide this emergency response, necessary to help a population that is suffering from the war in their country», explained Nuno Marques.
The country of refugees arriving in the region – some with the support of the ABC, as was the case with those who arrived in Loulé on Saturday -, is the same as Valeriya Boshernitsan.
This Ukrainian born and raised in Odessa, graduated in physics and specialized in electronic engineering and nanotechnology, came to the Algarve eight years ago, through the Erasmus program, to complete her first PhD and stayed here, always linked to the University of the Algarve.
«I've known people here at the Faculty of Medicine for many years. When I learned that the ABC center was going to create an initiative to support Ukrainian refugees who come here, obviously, I went to help», he told the Sul Informação.
Valeriya was eventually hired to serve as a liaison with the Ukrainian community.
«People who arrive and want to have access to consultations or any other information, can send me an email [[email protected])]. We've already had a lot of contacts. I also posted on Facebook and contacted different communities. In this way, I have requests on Facebook, phone calls and emails are always dropping», he described.
With regard to clinical, psychological and emotional support, it is being concentrated, at this first moment, “on refugees, because they arrive with children and the elderly”.
«It is very important to support the children, but also the adults who arrive, because for them it is a shock. We are going to give them this psychological support to prevent them from being traumatized and so that they can have a normal life here”, explained Valeriya Boshernitsan.
Support, in many cases, begins right away in countries such as Poland and Hungary, where ABC doctors and nurses have gone, accompanying humanitarian and refugee transport missions, in conjunction with Chambers, such as Loulé and Olhão. .
“People sometimes show some symptoms during the trip and need care. With this accompaniment, we even give another confidence to those who are going on the trip, along the way, because it takes three days to get here», illustrated Nuno Marques.
On the way, «situations are immediately identified and upon arrival, we have a team, made up of doctors, nurses and psychologists who carry out the first assessment, so that they are properly monitored as soon as they arrive here», concluded the ABC director.
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