Retired Lake City Physician Assistant Bob Downs exudes compassion and his eyes briefly mist as he reflects on his most recent medical mission trip to war-torn Ukraine.
While recounting hundreds of meaningful medical contacts which he made via translator on his nine-day trip, Downs has now briefly touched back down on home turf in Lake City but expresses anticipation for his fourth humanitarian trip to Ukraine with Global Care Force in about a month.
Previous to this year, Downs took part in two Global Force medical missions in Ukraine in two separate trips in March and July, 2024, and was already making plans and raising funds for a third trip which is scheduled April 7 to 20 next month.
“The teams feel very strongly about what they are doing,” he says. “And it may sound silly,” he adds, “but, frankly, I can’t wait to go back.”
In the meantime, however, on the Global Care Force Facebook website, he noted that the corps was short-staffed for a February 3-17 mission trip which was already scheduled and urgently necessary both to see new and returning patients, and re-prescribe 60 and 30-day prescriptions. On the spur of the moment, Downs — with a proven Global Force track record after two trips last year — re-enlisted for the March mission trip.
Downs’ average expense for each trip is $6,500, roughly two-thirds of which covers medicines which are prescribed and one-third travel expense.
Costs for his fourth mission trip next month are largely already covered by donations which he has received, approximately $1,300 yet remaining to be raised as of last weekend.
Individuals wishing to contribute toward his medical mission trip expenses are asked to visit the Global Care Force Facebook page and click on his name, Robert Downs, on the volunteers page.
Downs moved to Lake City from Ohio in 2014 and was revered for his work as Physician Assistant at Lake City Area Medical Center. He formally retired in 2024 but has remained active in the local medical field, most recently being sworn in as newest board member of Lake Fork Health Service District.
Although Ukraine remains a central focus of Global Care Force, medical professional teams are also sent to Arizona at Flagstaff and the Mexico border, as well as a new focus with medical teams scheduled for deployment to rural areas of Egypt and Jordan starting in July this year.
As the sole PA on last month’s four-member U.S. team, Downs flew from Denver to Krakow, Poland, where he joined physicians Dr. Rick Randolph and Dr. Robert Schneider, both from the Kansas City area, and Tyler King, Registered Nurse from Dallas.
Prior to the multi-hour train journey from Krakow to Kiev, Downs and his fellow U.S. medical cohorts met up with their six-member partner team from the Ukraine consisting of team leader Eugene, an internal medicine physician, pharmacist, behavioral health specialist and — equally integral for the Americans — translators.
Downs emphasizes the importance of translators in terms of communications between American medical team members and Ukrainian residents seeking medical assistance. “I’m not typically a language guy,” he tells SILVER WORLD, although now with several mission trips under his proverbial belt, he has several Ukrainian phrases down pat, including “Dobryjden” for “hello” and “Dobroho-Vdorov-ya” translating “good health” and conversely, “take care” which he delivers with his hand held over his heart.
He notes that in interactions with the Ukrainian people they are, without exception, “very, very thankful.” He recounts an instance from last month’s trip in which, through translator, he prescribed over-the-counter vitamins for a Ukrainian woman in her 60s. Unexpected at the next day’s clinic was the woman’s sister who voiced her admiration by hugging Downs and emotionally expressing her gratitude in a video in which she credited him for “tolerance” and “professionalism,” as well as his “high level of proficiency.”
After the first night in Kiev, Downs and fellow medical volunteers with Global Care Force Team 24 traveled south to the ship-building port city of Mykolaiv which is located near the juncture of the Inglu and Southern Bug Rivers leading into the Black Sea.
Mykolaiv was recently liberated after being occupied by the Russians and, as a result, considerable war damage still remains. As an important port where portions of the Russian naval fleet docked until recently, Downs says local residents pointed with pride to sunken Russian naval vessels, noting “they are very proud of the fact” they were responsible for sinking these ships.
In both Kiev and Mykolaiv, team members bunked in hotels, a notable difference from Downs’ last Ukrainian mission trip in July, 2024; on this trip, team 8members were advised not to drink the water, although electric services remained in both Kiev and Mykolaiv. At Mykolaiv, water where team members headquartered remaining running but exuded a strong odor. Downs and the team were advised that the city’s water system had been destroyed and told not to use the tap water — even to brush teeth using the liquid — during their stay.
Asked for apparent differences in Ukraine
comparing his most recent February, 2025, Ukraine trip to his previous visit in July, 2024, Downs notes that destruction to the country’s infrastructure is now more apparent. “Despite this,” he adds, “Ukrainians are resilient and continue to go about their daily lives.”
In Mykolaiv, Global Care Force volunteers bunked in rudimentary hotel accommodations with electricity and minimal heat and for three days travelled to remote villages, where impromptu…….
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Top photo, much of last month’s medical mission trip was spent in the recently Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv. Left, unpacking medical supplies for one of the rural mobile clinics.
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