Is it easy to live today on 2450 UAH a month? What if you are a disabled person who needs to undergo hemodialysis three times a week for life? And what is there left to do if you can't even get your meagre pension because of the military actions unfolded in your city? Nothing. You can't do it without help.

 I got diabetes 19 years ago. I undertook treatment in Luhansk City Polyclinic No. 11. And in 2006, I had some problems with my kidneys and pancreas, and my vision began to deteriorate rapidly.

 When I went to the clinic in Kyiv, doctors said that the eye surgery will not give any result because of the main disease. The the situation would only escalate. The doctors were right, after all. Today I have chronic kidney failure, blindness, and retinal detachment. In 2012, I suffered a stroke.

 While things got quiet and peaceful in in Luhansk, I managed to make ends meet. I received a disability pension, and some of the hemodialysis medications were provided by the hospital under the state program. But a prosperous existence in the city collapsed in the summer.

Since July 2014, it has been impossible to receive any payments. Electricity and water disappeared in homes and hospitals, and supplies and medications ran out.

If a hemodialysis procedure for patients with chronic kidney failure is not maintained, it is a death sentence. A body is gradually poisoned by decay products, which are excreted in the urine of healthy people, without artificial blood purification during the metabolic process.

 I decided to leave Luhansk. Supported by the National Assembly of Disabled People of Ukraine, we managed to check in a hotel for the blind in Kyiv. Kyiv City Children's Clinical Hospital provided hemodialysis services. I reissued my pension on the spot and waited for payments.

 As it turned out, all these efforts were not enough. I had to buy supplies and medications by myself.

 I have enough medications to stabilise my blood pressure and have artificial blood purification procedures. But then what? I would like to return to my hometown, but my relatives told me that the windows and doors in my house were shattered because of the shelling. They were boarded up somehow, but you can't pass the winter there.

I feel like I'm living on sufferance. Here in Kyiv, people treat me well, no one has ever reproached me for coming here. But I can't stay in this hotel forever. What will happen next? When the situation in Luhansk will get better, will I be able to get treatment there again? It is unknown. The future is fuzzy…