Mothers, babies shelter in Kyiv hospital basement

STORY: This is what life looks like for sick children, mothers and babies in Kyiv's Ohmadyt Children's Hospital.

They are adjusting to life under siege in the underground bunker.

Some lying in corridors on IV drips, others finding comfort in makeshift beds and blankets laid out on either side of the concrete isle.

Maryna's nine-year-old child is undergoing cancer treatment in the basement.

“We receive all the medicine we need, though we are running out of food. Local charity funds promised to bring some. We are waiting for them to come and bring us bread, essentials and some juice for children.”

This hospital is the biggest of its kind in the country.

It normally has up to 600 patients.

But that number is around 200 now, according to chief surgeon Volodymyr Zhovnir.

Those who are staying are simply too sick to go home or flee the capital.

Pavlo Plavskyy is the neurosurgeon in the hospital:

“We have a lot of patients that we can’t move to another hospital, it is very hard. Some patients – we moved them to western Ukraine. A lot of patients don’t want (to be moved) because it is the biggest hospital and they are treated here, they don’t know what is the situation in another hospital. That’s why they don’t want to move sometimes. They found here a place and my department don’t want to move them upstairs at all because moving upstairs and downstairs is always very hard for babies and parents.”

Kyiv is girding for worse battles to come as Russian forces approach in what Moscow calls a "special operation".

So far the hospital has been spared the bombardment that has reached the outskirts of the city.

Although staff said they have heard gunfire in recent days.

The entrance to the hospital was guarded by heavily armed police during a media visit.

Zhovnir said the focus is on the security of medical staff who are desperately needed to treat the patients.

And he is just as worried about the children who were not able to make it to the hospital as those who are stuck there.