TO ALL PIROGOVITES AND PFVMH FANS

An informal apolitical address on the political moment in the country

Dear Friends!

As we reiterated earlier on several occasions, the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital is beyond politics. Established during the hottest period of the war, it aimed at uniting efforts of patriotic medics from all corners of Ukraine (and not only) to save the lives and health of our defenders. With time, the project grew out of its initial activities and took care of civilians, too, and not only in the combat areas. In other words, the PFVMH started doing what we call “stitching up Ukraine.” It has turned into a big tight-knit community of concerned people from various regions and various strata of Ukrainian society. Our day-to-day work has been consistently proving that there are many more things uniting Ukrainians than those dividing them. In doing this, we have and will never become an “annex” to, or a “popularization tool” for, any political force.

However, by no means does this apolitical stance of the PFVMH mean that participants in this project have no political views of their own. Quite the contrary, as people with a super active position in life, the Pirogovites do have their vision of ways for the country to develop and of those who should be leaders in these ways. This diversity of views is evidenced by how some “hotheads” nearly damned and unfriended us after the PFVMH happened to accept endowments from those who, according to these hotheads, were unworthy of donating to the PFVMH.

Now, Ukraine once again undergoes an attempt of reloading, on which many people pin their hopes but nobody knows for sure its ultimate result. The snap election scheduled for July is opening a window of opportunities for politically active people against the societal demand for “new faces.” No doubt, there will be Pirogovites among them, which is good: the more PFVMH sympathizer MPs, the better.

During the electoral campaign, the Pirogovite candidates will certainly found themselves in the camps of different political forces and so will be competitors (and we know well what the Ukrainian electoral political “correctness” means). That is why, on May 21, 2019, a spearhead gathered in the PFVMH office to hammer out a common position as to the behavior of the volunteer hospital’s members and fans during the campaign. The brainstorming participants included (alphabetically) Viktor Belilovets, Ihor Buyvol, Tamila Danilevska, Gennadiy Druzenko, Oleksandr Hahayev, Oleksandr Klymenko, Viktoria Kramarenko, Ivan Ozhoh, and Oleksandr Zheleznyak. Oleh Shyba and Dmytro Vernyhor were with us mentally and virtually.

The brainstorming resulted in the following proposals and requests we are addressing to you:

• Provided there is such a wish and possibilities, we encourage (and will support to a reasonable extent) everyone who so wishes to run as a parliamentary candidate or volunteer as a campaign staff activists of those political forces that fit in your political beliefs or you just feel good about. As mentioned above, the more PFVMH veterans and fans there are among MPs, the better since we want to bring the PFVMH to a new level of its activities and make our hospital’s unique experience an asset of Ukraine’s entire health care system;
• We would be very upset to see Pirogovited in the camps of outspoken anti-Ukrainian forces (we won’t name names, although they are the medvedchuks, boykos, rabinovichs, and other lyovochkins with kerneses 🙂 );
• We consider quite reasonable to use the fact of own participation in the PFVMH while campaigning but only as personal merit, that is, without linking the organization as a whole to any specific political force;
• Take notice that neither the PFVMH site nor its Facebook pages will publish any information that could be perceived as election campaigning for or against irrespective of the candidate’s position with the PFVMH or his/her merits. Any comments supporting or denouncing any specific candidate or party will be deleted in cold blood;
• We call to refrain from throwing dirt at you opponents in general and Pyrogovites in particular. Remember that the mud will stick to the PFVMH standard above your own head.

Good luck!

Oleh SHYBA, PFVMH President

Oleksandr KLYMENKO, artist, the main sponsor of the PFVMH

Gennadiy DRUZENKO, PFVMH Supervisory Board Chairman

Tamila DANILEVSKA, Executive Director of the PFVMH Charitable Foundation

Oleksandr HAHAYEV, PFVMH Vice President in charge of liaison with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and law enforcement agencies

Ihor BUYVOL, PFVMH Vice President for logistics

Dmytro VERNYHOR, PFVMH Vice President and Medical Director

Ivan OZHOH, Deputy Executive Director of the PFVMH Charitable Foundation

Viktoria KRAMARENKO, Head of the PFVMH nursing service

Viktor BELILOVETS, anesthesiologist, PFVMH veteran, a participant in seven missions to the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone

Oleksandr ZHELEZNYAK, PFVMH Communications Manager