History of a Polish doctor who saves Ukrainian soldiers: "I cannot not go to the front"

From the very beginning of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, Polish anesthesiologist Justyna Leščuk has been traveling to the frontline areas. For more than three months a year she volunteers at training sessions, during evacuations, and at stabilization points, where she saves wounded Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers.

The story of the Polish anesthesiologist who saves Ukrainian fighters is told by and retold in the publication "Nowa Polska".

Magdalena Rigamonti: Why do you go there?

Justyna Leščuk: There is war there. Soldiers with terrible injuries, for example, to the head. Without legs, without arms, without eyes. Help is needed. And I know how to relieve pain.

MR: For money?

JLe: I go as a volunteer.

MR: For free?

JLe: Yes, by bus or train.

MR: All the way to the front line?

JLe: Not all the way, but not far. If we’re talking about money, in Warsaw I work in two hospitals in the anesthesiology departments. I have been going to Ukraine almost since the start of the large war, since 2022 year. I worked a bit in the west, in central Ukraine, and in the Donbas. I cannot not go to the front: I help the wounded. And so that in a few dozen years I won’t think that I was indifferent.

MR: You can volunteer also in Poland—in a hospital or a home for the elderly.

JLe: I also went to the Polish-Belarusian border when there was a crisis there. Then, in the spring 2022 year, when I was in the forest near the border itself, a colleague medic, whom I’ve known since the National Stadium, called and said that an evacuation train would bring children from Ukraine for continuation of cancer treatment, and asked if I would join the team. I wanted to. My patients in Polish hospitals are also children.

MR: At the National Stadium they once organized a hospital for COVID patients.

JLe: Yes, I coordinated the work of the intensive care unit.

MR: You could, like David Kaspszik, a doctor at Warsaw's South Hospital, earn one and a half million zlotys a year. 2026 year around the politics of the Civic Coalition sparked a scandal: information appeared that after 2025 year he earned about 1,6 million zlotys, and the hospital declared almost 4 thousand hours of his work. The Prosecutor’s Office began an inspection.

JLe: I couldn’t: I don’t have such high-ranking friends. And I wouldn’t want to. I joke that I am probably the anesthesiologist with the lowest earnings in Poland, because I work as a volunteer for several dozen weeks a year: at trainings, during transport, and at stabilization points for wounded Ukrainian soldiers. And David Kaspszik, in my view, is more of a politician than a doctor, since he has been in politics longer than in medicine, after all he only recently earned his medical diploma.

MR: Fine, but you are an experienced anesthesiologist and could simply earn money. After all, such opportunities exist.

JLe: Of course, they exist. But I like being among people with special energy and a clear set of values who want to work well and save others. I could not constantly be close to doctors who chase only money. I wouldn’t want to go to such a job every day.