Hospitalizations of Ukrainian Migrants and Refugees in Poland in the Time of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Abstract

Background: In the face of a sudden influx of several million migrants and war refugees from Ukraine to other European countries, knowledge about the health of Ukrainian citizens becomes increasingly important. The aim of the study is to identify the main health problems of hospitalized Ukrainian citizens residing in Poland in the period from 2014 to June 2022. Methods: This study is based on hospitalization data of Ukrainian patients in Poland taken from the Nationwide General Hospital Morbidity Study. Results: The study group covered 8591 hospitalization records. We observed two hospitalization peaks, one in patients aged 0–5 and the other one in those aged 20–35. After the official outbreak of the war, 2231 Ukrainian citizens were hospitalized in Poland. At this time, the most often reported principal reasons for the hospitalizations of adult women were diseases related to pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium, whereas in groups of adult men diseases were related to injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes, and in children and adolescents diseases were infectious and parasitic diseases. Conclusions: Our findings may have implications for healthcare policies and service provision to newly arrived migrants and war refugees in target European countries.

Refugee Health: A Global and Multidisciplinary Challenge

“… 31 Moreover, Polish medical records in February–June 2022 listed 578 Ukrainian women and documented a high percentage of subjects hospitalized due to diseases related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium (228 [39%]). 32 This study pointed to a high risk of neonatal morbidity and mortality among immigrant Ukrainian women. Subsequently, securing the refugees’ rights for effective contraception and safe abortion may save their lives and improve family planning during and after the war.…”

RUemo—The Classification Framework for Russia-Ukraine War-Related Societal Emotions on Twitter through Machine Learning

“…Existing literature such as [35][36][37][38][39] focused on the specific domain of study to assess the impact of the RUW on the energy, gas (crude oil), food, healthcare, and stock markets, respectively, whereas our work highlights the generalized societal emotions and views of the RUW. Moreover, by complementing prior studies such as [40,41] we have chosen Twitter for this study to provide an automatic emotion classification framework by combining, NLP, TL, and ML altogether.…”

“…Understanding the health of Ukrainian residents is crucial in light of the rapid migration of several million migrants and war refugees from Ukraine into other European nations. In [38], the authors identified the major health issues by analyzing the nationwide general hospital morbidity data for Ukrainian residents who resided in Poland from 2014 to June 2022. At this time, diseases associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium were the most frequently reported primary causes of hospitalizations for adult women.…”

One Year On: Poland’s Public Health Initiatives and National Response to Millions of Refugees from Ukraine

“…Between February 24 and June 30, 2022, there were 2230 reported hospitalizations of Ukrainian patients in Poland, which included 1494 children, 578 adult women, and 158 adult men [ 7 ]. Within the first 3 months of the onset of the conflict, 27 861 Ukrainian refugees, of whom 58% were children, received treatment in Polish healthcare facilities, mainly as outpatients [ 7 ]. In 2022, Poland had the highest total social and healthcare costs from accepting Ukrainian refugees, estimated at approximately 8.4 billion euros [ 8 ].…”