Since 2022, our Children’s Health Bus in Ukraine has provided a space where people can access medical care alongside psychological, legal and practical support. Mobility is particularly important during wartime, when healthcare infrastructure is damaged, access to specialists is limited, and reaching a doctor can be difficult or impossible.
2022. In March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we decided to help people affected by the war. Working with international humanitarian organisations, we sent one of our Children’s Health Bus vehicles to Ukraine.
Since then, the vehicle has supported several collaborative projects, providing primary healthcare and other essential services in communities where the war has severely limited access to timely assistance. Over the past four years, the mobile clinic’s role has evolved in response to changing circumstances and people’s needs. Its core purpose, however, has remained the same: to bring help wherever it is needed most.
Working with Fortitude UA
2025. In 2025, we signed a cooperation agreement with the Ukrainian charitable organisation Fortitude UA. Together, we run projects that provide practical, accessible support to children and adults in war-affected communities.
Our vehicle’s main advantage is its mobility. It enables doctors and other specialists to reach people even in places without suitable premises, essential equipment or regularly available services. During wartime, this can make a crucial difference, as distance, security risks, health conditions or a lack of transport prevent many people from reaching the nearest healthcare facility.
Our partnership with Fortitude UA allows the vehicle to be used flexibly and adapted to each community’s current needs. Depending on the project, it can provide medical consultations and diagnostic examinations, as well as child development services, psychological support and other forms of assistance.
Supporting children and inclusive education
2026. In March 2026, our vehicle became part of Fortitude UA’s mobile inclusive education centre project in Ukraine. The centre provided therapeutic and developmental sessions for children, enabling specialists to work directly in communities, closer to children and their families.
In many parts of Ukraine, long distances, war damage and inadequate infrastructure create significant barriers to inclusive education and developmental support. These challenges particularly affect families of children with additional needs, for whom regular specialist support is essential to development, everyday skills and participation in community life.
The mobile service brought essential support closer to these families. It helped reduce the risk of children missing out on the assistance they needed because of distance, security concerns or a lack of transport. The project also demonstrated how the mobile clinic’s space could be adapted for different purposes, supporting children’s education and development alongside medical consultations.
Healthcare and psychosocial support in the Sumy region
2026. In August and September 2026, our Children’s Health Bus played an active role in the project “Improving access to life-saving healthcare and psychosocial support services for vulnerable groups and strengthening the resilience of war-affected communities in the Sumy region”.
The project takes a multidisciplinary approach. Its mobile team includes a family doctor, a gynaecologist, a psychologist and a legal adviser. This combination enables people to receive several types of assistance during a single visit, from health assessments and diagnostic examinations to psychological support and legal advice.
The project aims to reach 1,386 individual beneficiaries and provide a total of 3,087 consultations. Support extends beyond medical consultations. Depending on patients’ needs, the project also provides prescribed medication, blood tests, ultrasound scans and cytological examinations.
Throughout August and September, the multidisciplinary mobile team regularly visited rural settlements in the communities covered by the project. Services included patient registration, initial health assessments, consultations with a family doctor, monitoring of vital signs, rapid diagnostic tests, laboratory tests and, where medically indicated, electrocardiograms (ECGs).
Patients could also receive gynaecological consultations, ultrasound scans, psychological support, legal advice and prescribed medication. Home visits were arranged for people with significantly reduced mobility.
Bringing care to places without suitable healthcare facilities
At the start of the project, our vehicle mainly provided additional space for patient consultations. As the mobile team travelled further into areas without suitable healthcare premises, the clinic became increasingly important.
The gynaecology team began making full use of the vehicle, enabling consultations and diagnostic examinations in places where these services would otherwise have been unavailable. A private space suitable for medical care is particularly important in gynaecology. The mobile clinic therefore became essential to making these services available in remote communities.
Many patients are older people living with chronic health conditions. During wartime, reaching a doctor can be difficult or impossible for them. Access to consultations, examinations and essential medication within their own community enables timely health assessments and reduces the risk of treatment being delayed.
Mobility that brings help to people
Over the past four years, our vehicle’s role in Ukraine has evolved to meet people’s needs. It has been used to provide primary healthcare, child development support, gynaecological consultations and diagnostic examinations, as well as psychological support and legal advice.
These projects demonstrate the value of mobile, adaptable services in times of crisis. They enable specialists to respond to conditions in each community and provide assistance in places where services at permanent facilities are unavailable.
Throughout these years, one principle has remained unchanged: when people cannot reach help, help must reach them.
We continue to work with Fortitude UA so that our Children’s Health Bus can go wherever it is needed most, providing practical support to people and families in war-affected communities across Ukraine.
Learn more about our work: https://bernuveselibasbusins.lv
