The Story of a Hospitaller – Mariia Kapitula with callsign “Intern”

Mariia Kapitula joined the battalion in 2023.

“On the first day of vacation, I opened Instagram and saw that the Hospitallers were holding a training. I filled out the form, and an hour later they called me back: ‘Can you come tomorrow? You need to be here.’ I said ‘yes,’ not even realizing what I was signing up for or what would happen. And so, on the second day of my vacation, I was already at the base.”

“Intern” works as a nurse in the pediatric oncohematology department of a hospital in Lutsk. She spends her two state vacations and two unpaid leaves on rotations.

“You keep shifting and shifting your shifts around, and then you work non-stop to catch up, to close everything. Once a quarter I manage to go, sometimes twice. I tried to count how many rotations I’ve done. Probably already ten.”

Mariia has already worked in the Donetsk, Kherson, and Sumy directions, but she says her favorite is Lyman.

“I love Lyman so much, it’s crazy. Lyman, Sviatohirsk. It was love at first sight. My first rotation was in Lyman. We arrived, I saw this place and thought: ‘If not for the war, I would live here.’ It’s the city of dreams. And then I saw Sviatohirsk too. Two cities I love very, very much.”

The hardest thing in field medicine, she says, is the lack of sterility. At first, “Intern” sterilized everything around, checked sterility at stabilization points, and changed the sheets on beds after every wounded person.

“I used to come up to the guys at the stabilization point and say: ‘This isn’t sterile anymore, it has to be replaced.’ And they were like: ‘You’re from civilian medicine, right? Oh, yeah, it’s obvious — here comes the nurse putting everything in order.’”

In June, Mariia Kapitula won in the category “Nurse of Mercy” at the “Best Nurse of Ukraine” award as part of the XVI International Congress of Nurses. She became one of the 12 best nurses in Ukraine.

From the battalion, she has also been awarded the distinctions “For a Life Saved” and “For Impeccable Service.” #Hospitallers #Paramedics #UkraineParamedics #HospitallersUkraine #HospitallersUK #HelpHospitallers #Ukraine #SupportUkraine #HelpUkraine #StandWithUkraine #HelpUkraineNow