Months after the Russians left, many Ukrainian towns are still devastated by war. Almost a year since it began, life won't be normal for people in eastern Ukraine for possibly many years to come. 

In Lyman only two doctors remain, to serve a city and the surrounding area where normally tens of thousands of people would live and work. There are more soldiers than civilians here now. 

It's not a forgotten area, but it is mostly destroyed. More than three-quarters of the city was damaged during the fighting last year.

One of the main hospitals had only recently had its maternity unit modernized. Now it's ready to be demolished.

"The medicine infrastructure is damaged and destroyed by almost 90 to 95 percent," says Andriy Rebrov, Lyman's chief of primary medical care. "Almost all the clinics that offer emergency medical aid, where family doctors worked have been destroyed and people have been left without any first aid help."

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Such shattered infrastructure is unlikely to attract the mothers and children who fled to western Europe back to their hometowns. Millions more Ukrainians are refugees within their own country.

At a former nursery school, one of only two family doctors left in Lyman's province has mostly elderly patients. As well as dealing with flu and people suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, a larger health threat is feared: tuberculosis is on the rise.

"People now are living in unsanitary conditions, for instance in basements , and some are suffering from hypothermia," explains local GP Anatoliy Havrilenko. "They are in a stressful situation, and are having problems finding healthy food - and eating enough calories every day."

Years of rebuilding and hundreds of millions of dollars are needed in this one city alone, and Lyman has the same problems as many similar towns and cities in eastern Ukraine.

There's no running water, gas has only been partially reconnected, and although power is slowly being restored, most hospitals, schools, large buildings and homes have been partially or completely destroyed.

No wonder only an estimated few thousand people have returned to live here. The main road and rail bridges into Lyman are unusable - but for many of those who escaped, the lack of adequate healthcare may be an even bigger barrier to returning home.

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