At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, people from Brabant drove to the border with packed trucks and buses. But now that gigantic flow of aid supplies has all but dried up. While the need is great: medical goods are in great demand, say three collectors from Tilburg.
Rick van Eyndhoven’s warehouse looks empty. Too empty, if it’s up to him. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the hall was filled to the brim with relief supplies. “People have been very generous. But now it’s lagging behind.”
That while, according to him, the need may be even greater now than in the first weeks. “The war is going to go on for a while. If we don’t make sure enough food, medicine and medical equipment go that way, more people will die than from weapons alone.”
The stuff he mentions is far from arbitrary. Aid worker Sebas Oomis also knows this. “In the beginning we drove back and forth with vans full of stuffed animals.” While those cuddly critters were more than welcome to the tens of thousands of kids at the time, other things are now at the top of their priority list.
“It’s really about medical devices now,” says Sebas. In recent days he has managed to scrape together a stock from different angles. “Insulin, about forty insulin pens and even more material for people with diabetes. They are really short of that now.”
And there was more good news. “I can pick up all kinds of outdated but still working equipment from a hospital. Think ultrasound machines, defibrillators, a wound compression machine. It’s fantastic.”
And so Sebas leaves on Tuesday again with a good feeling and an equally well-filled bus to the Ukrainian border. “It feels good to make such a contribution.”