Photos: Ukraine's hospitals under strain, even with few COVID-19 cases

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Medical workers in homemade protective masks and suits, with plastic bags over their shoes. A hospital intended for 150 coronavirus patients now holding 250. A lack of filtration systems that forces autopsies to be done outside, under the trees, instead of in the hospital morgue. | Above: A doctor, wearing a special suit, walks through a corridor at an intensive care unit at a regional hospital in Chernivtsi. Image Credit: AP

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Ukraine's troubled health care system has been overwhelmed by COVID-19, even though it has reported a relatively low number of cases — 15,648 infections and 408 deaths as of Monday. | Above: A medical specialist checks a 5 years old girl's lung x-ray results at a hospital in Chernivtsi. Image Credit: AP

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Nowhere is the problem more evident than in western city of Chernivtsi, with 2,324 confirmed infections in the city and the surrounding region. It is considered a hot spot of contagion, along with another western city, Ivano-Frankivsk, 100 kilometers away, and the capital, Kyiv. | Above: A nurse administers drugs to a patient with coronavirus at an ICU at a regional hospital in Chernivtsi. Image Credit: AP

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Thousands of Ukrainians who had temporary jobs in Europe have returned home amid the pandemic and some brought the virus back with them. | Above: A doctor checks a patient with coronavirus with a stethoscope during evening examination at a hospital in Pochaiv. Image Credit: AP

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As COVID-19 patients flood into the struggling hospitals, some doctors and nurses must buy their own protective gear or use improvised equipment. Many of them are getting sick: medical workers account for about a fifth of all coronavirus cases in Ukraine. | Above: A doctor speaks to a patient with coronavirus during evening examination at a hospital in Malyn. Image Credit: AP

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"My soul is crying!" said Mykola Sharakhlitsky, an anesthesiologist at Chernivtsi's main hospital as he cleaned a protective suit. "We are experiencing a shortage of medical equipment and protective gear, and we all get infected as a result." | Above: Funeral workers lower the coffin of Semen Muchka, 71, who died of coronavirus disease, into the grave at a cemetery in Krynytsya. Image Credit: AP

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There is not a hospital-grade ventilator for the 250 patients in the facility in Chernivtsi, a city of 266,000 people. "I don't believe that a single hospital in Ukraine has all it needs," said ICU chief Kostyantyn Dronyk. "We are short of everything." | Above: A doctor checks a patient with coronavirus with a stethoscope during evening examination at a hospital in Malyn. Image Credit: AP

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Pathologists transport the body of a man who died of coronavirus, at the doors of the morgue in Ternopil, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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Nadiya, right, and Andrii Muchka, daughter and son of Semen Muchka, 71, who died of coronavirus disease, wear face masks during his funeral at a cemetery in Krynytsya, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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Medical specialists, wearing special suits to protect against coronavirus, walk through a disinfectant corridor toward intensive care unit at a regional hospital in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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An elderly woman, a patient with coronavirus, breathes using an oxygen mask inside a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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Medical workers work with samples for a PCR test for the COVID-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Ternopil, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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Firefighters spray chlorine in front of a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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A doctor poses for a photo after caring for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Zalishchyky, Ukraine. \ Image Credit: AP

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Pathologists reveal the body of a man who died of coronavirus, outside a hospital's morgue in Ternopil, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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A medical specialist wearing a special suit to protect against coronavirus, poses for photo next to an icon at a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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Doctor Ivan Venzhynovych, wearing special suit to protect against coronavirus, poses for a photo after morning examination patients with coronavirus at a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine. Image Credit: AP

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