Ukraine’s psychiatric care on the brink in face of mass trauma

When Russian drones and missiles pierce the skies above Ukraine at night and air defence begins to thunder, Olga Klimova plunges into a deep sleep — far from her stay in a crowded psychiatric ward.

- Romain Colas

“I take my pills, I sleep deeply, I don’t hear anything,” the 44-year-old said, her giggle exposing missing teeth. In her dreams, Klimova sees her village: Kyselivka in the southern Kherson region. She lived several months under Russian occupation in 2022, before Kyiv's forces retook Kherson. Suffering from schizophrenia, Klimova was then evacuated hundreds of kilometres (miles) northwards, to a hospital in the central city of Poltava. She has since been a patient in the Poltava Regional Psychiatric Hospital.