A Suffolk-based doctor has been helping hospitals in war-torn Ukraine by arranging to deliver 110 tonnes of medical supplies.

Consultant urologist Sergey Tadtayev, who works at St Edmunds Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, has identified needs in hospitals and has worked with private healthcare provider Circle Health Group to gather 10 truckloads of kit.

This includes 200 pallets of vital kit and medical supplies from across the group’s national network of 53 hospitals.

Equipment including ventilators, crutches, walking frames, respiratory masks, scrubs, bandages, wound kits and operating tables have been distributed across the eastern European country.

When supplies arrive, they are distributed to local community hospitals through a ‘hub and spoke’ system.

Volunteer hauliers from the UK, Poland and Ukraine have been making the journey on a weekly basis since March 15 to deliver urgent supplies, navigating their way through areas of conflict to reach the hospitals in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykoliav, Odessa and Lviv.

The latest delivery, which departed the UK on April 13, arrived at Kharkiv hospitals on Easter Sunday, containing £185,500 of medical equipment loaded on 35 pallets, including five ventilators, an operating table, patient monitors, suction tubing and chest drainage sets and sterile gowns.

Dr Tadtayev said: “My heart breaks for my fellow doctors back home who are fighting heroically to care for the sick and wounded – even as the bombs continue to fall.

“Hospitals are struggling to get basic supplies because transport and manufacturing have been so badly disrupted, so I knew I had to do something to help.

“Moving 110 tonnes of medical supplies between hospitals separated by thousands of miles and several borders has been an incredible team effort and I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of my colleagues at Circle Health Group.

“They are moving heaven and earth to get help to those who really need it on the frontline and I am humbled by the solidarity and support for my homeland.”