'The situation was so overwhelming': Saskatoon doctor helps Ukrainian refugees in Poland

A Polish refugee himself, Saskatoon’s Dr. Robert Skomro said helping out Ukrainian refugees in his home country was a way to give back.

“I came to this country when I was 18, and have been loving it here. Very grateful to be here,” he told CTV News. “I grew up under the Iron Curtain. So, I was quite familiar with what that generation has been going through.”

Dr. Skomro said he spent a couple of weeks in Poland this March offering medical assistance and other support for those fleeing the war in their country.

He said he reached out to local municipal governments in need of volunteers.

“The situation was so overwhelming that they would welcome anybody,” he said. “Particularly they were looking for people who were linguistically savvy, and spoke local languages and understood the local landscape, which I do because I go to Poland quite often. I'm familiar with the healthcare system, the governments there and so on.”

He first spent some time in the City of Krakow helping at hotel that was serving as a medical centre for refugees.

“I was assigned to work with a local Polish doctor, and a social worker in a local hotel where we would be having an ambulatory clinic, but also provide care in a hotel room. At the time, there were various outbreaks. You know, the living conditions were not ideal, and a lot of chronic diseases that had to be looked after,” Dr. Skomro said.

He then moved to helping at a train station in Przemysl, Poland where thousands of refugees arrived each day in need of humanitarian support.

“We're looking at about five to six trains per day, each with about 500 to 1,000 people.

“For a lot of them, even though phonetically the languages are similar, they have often difficulty navigating even simple things like signs and getting information,” he said.

“It could be sometimes two or three trains arriving at the same time and all of a sudden, you're surrounded by hundreds of people and everybody needs something. So it was challenging for sure.”

Dr. Skomro said that the experience helped him appreciate life in Canada.

“I think it's life-changing in the sense that it provides a perspective and that perspective stays with one forever. And, you know, the human side of it and the human suffering is impressive.”

“You realize how important that kind of work is when they ask you, ‘Please don't leave me.’ Nobody's ever asked me that,” he said.

“I think it certainly makes you appreciate what we have here.”

He said he knew there were a lot of people in Saskatchewan that are doing what they can to help the people of Ukraine.

"In Saskatchewan, there are a lot of volunteers, raising funds, medical supplies, I probably wasn't the only one who made the trip over to that part of the world. So, people were trying to help as much as they could.

“I think those efforts were felt in Poland.”