Bucha is growing faster than its medical infrastructure: women in labour and young patients still travel to other towns, because the community has neither its own maternity unit nor a full paediatric department. The city authorities have been raising the issue in talks with international partners for several years.

This was announced by Bucha Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk on his Telegram channel following a visit to the city by Dejan Keserovic, Deputy Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migration in Ukraine.

"People must have access to care close to home"

"Bucha and the whole region must get a modern hospital of their own with paediatric and maternity departments. This is no longer just a need but an urgent necessity for a community that keeps growing. People must have access to quality medical care close to home," Anatolii Fedoruk stressed.

According to him, the community raises the issue constantly in talks with international partners and already has some groundwork in place. During the visit the delegation was shown a completed hospital design — meaning this is not a declaration of intent but documentation that can be taken to donors.

Anatolii Fedoruk during the meeting with the IOM delegation at the negotiating table
The meeting with the IOM delegation: the city presented its hospital design and water utility projects. Photo: Anatolii Fedoruk

Two directions instead of one

"We are working in two directions: we are ready to join the renovation of the Irpin Central City Hospital located in Bucha, and in parallel we are looking for opportunities to build a new hospital wing. Our task is clear: to create a full-scale modern medical infrastructure in Bucha," the mayor explained.

This approach insures the community against pauses in funding. Renovating the existing hospital delivers results faster and more cheaply, while building a new wing covers what the old walls cannot accommodate. If one track stalls, the other keeps moving.

Water was the second topic of the talks

Besides the hospital, the delegation was shown projects of the Bucha water utility. The largest of them addresses the water deficit in the community: a new second-lift pumping station with clean water reservoirs and an iron removal plant in Vorzel, a groundwater intake from six artesian wells, and a water main from Havrylivka to Vorzel. The package is estimated at around 400 million hryvnias.

A presentation of critical infrastructure projects of the Bucha community on screen
Critical infrastructure projects: covering the community's water deficit was estimated at roughly 400 million hryvnias. Photo: Anatolii Fedoruk

A separate line in the presentation covers capital repairs of water supply networks in the community's rural areas — Myrotske, Syniak, Lubianka and Blistavytsia. These were estimated at about 63 million hryvnias.

The International Organization for Migration has worked in Bucha district since 2022: the agency financed housing restoration, supplied equipment to municipal utilities and supported programmes for internally displaced people. Neither a timeline nor the scale of possible IOM involvement in the new projects has been announced yet.