16
COURIER LIFE, APRIL 8-14, 2022
BY XIMENA DEL CERRO
A Brooklyn doctor embarked
Monday night on a humanitarian
mission to Ukraine, where
he’ll join a 10-person team to
provide medical equipment and
training at a vulnerable spot on
the country’s border.
“We need to neutralize hatred
from the oppressor with humanitarian
love,” Dr. Conrad Fischer,
a Brookdale University Hospital
infectious disease specialist, told
Brooklyn Paper.
After more than 40 days of
the ongoing Russian invasion,
approximately 1,417 people have
been killed, and another 2,038
have been injured, according
to the United Nations Human
Rights Watch. More than 4 million
citizens — mostly women
and children — 205,000 non-
Ukrainians have fled the eastern
European country after Russia’s
first move. But, half a million
Ukrainians have since returned
to the dire territory, according to
the High Commissioner for Refugees
— which has dubbed the war
in Ukraine Europe’s worst refugee
crisis since World War II.
Fischer is affiliated with seven
medical centers in New York, including
Bellevue Hospital. He is
the associate chief of medicine for
educational activities at SUNY
Downstate School of Medicine
and an award-winning educator
who prepares med students for
the United States Medical Licensing
Examination. He is also a husband
and a father of two.
“They are important, but the
other children in Ukraine are
important, too,” said Fischer.
“Brooklyn is a very multicultural
place, and we can’t just care about
our own. There is a very large
Russian and Ukrainian community
here and they are hurting
from not knowing where their
families are, from fear of what
our society here will do to them
or to their businesses because of
what is going on. We have to do
more than just feel bad for them.”
Fischer decided to join relief
efforts on Feb. 24, the day Russian
forces started to invade
Ukraine, and has been making
arrangements since.
“I want to send out the message
that people don’t need to
be themselves from Ukraine or
have family there in order to do
something for the sake of other
people,” he said.
This is not Fischer’s first
time succoring regions with care
shortage. He participated in the
construction of a hospital in Pignon,
Haiti, a community of over
40,000 people near the mountains
with a high index of women suffering
miscarriages due to a lack
of medical care.
“It is not the same to send a
card than to show up for someone
who needs help,” said Fischer. “I
am going because I can, not everybody
is that position.”
Since announcing his departure,
Fischer has been met with
“incredible” support from colleagues
who have donated neck
braces, sutures, catheters, masks,
disinfectants and other medical
materials used to treat trauma.
Fischer brings more than 20
years of experience to the team, put
together by needs-based organization
MedGlobal, founded in 2017 by
doctors experienced in emergency
health services. Their operations
in Bangladesh, Puerto Rico, Yemen
and Colombia have been set to address
humanitarian crises caused
by natural disasters, displacement
due to conflict, disease outbreaks,
poverty or insufficient healthcare.
As he prepared for his flight
out, Fischer said he felt prepared
and protected in the care of
safety staff. He plans to be back
in New York by the weekend.
“My goal is to not die,” said
Fischer. “This is a place where
rockets fall from the sky. Going
doesn’t mean I’m not frightened
but I’m more frightened of not doing
anything.”
‘My goal is to not die’
Brooklyn doctor Conrad Fischer flew to war-torn Ukraine on April 4 to provide
medical equipment and training. Twitter
Doctor joins humanitarian mission to provide aid to Ukraine
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