Syrian Doctor makes Underground Hospital for Women and Girls
Nisaa FM: - With Syria’s healthcare system crippled by conflict, women and children are dying from treatable illnesses. One doctor and his team are providing them safe, dedicated medical care by building hospitals below ground, out of the reach of airstrikes.
Avicenna Women and Children’s hospital brings care
Syrian doctor Khaled Almilaji has established Avicenna Women and Children’s hospital, a facility currently being built in rebel-held Idlib province and to be opened in April 2018. The hospital will offer the reproductive and maternity care that is sorely lacking in a country where healthcare services have had to pivot to focus on trauma.
“Women don’t feel safe to stay in hospitals, which are attacked on a regular basis; they prefer to give birth at home without proper medical attendance, which is increasing complications for both mother and child,” says Almilaji. “That’s why providing a secure women and children’s hospital is essential.”
Since the start of the Syrian conflict, 485 medical facilities have been hit by military airstrikes, resulting in the deaths of 841 healthcare workers; a clear war crime. At least 64% of these attacks were perpetrated by the Syrian military, with the rest carried out by Russian forces, nonstate groups or unknown attackers.
Avicenna Women and Children’s hospital is being built in partnership with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and international donors.
The eight above-ground floors have been fortified to provide a protective barrier that should stop bombs from reaching the underground floors where the new hospital is located. But Russian airstrikes use high-explosive ammunition, such as bunker-buster bombs, which are far more destructive than Syria’s barrel bombs (see photo to the right).
Normally this would mean hiding the location of the hospital. But it has been decided to make Avicenna more visible by handing coordinates over to both Russian and Syrian authorities. This way making the coordinates public and involving the U.N., which will make it harder for Russia or Syria to attack the hospital. “They won’t be able to say that they didn’t know the hospital was there,” Almilaji says. “And our doctors know that if they are attacked, the world will know about it.”
NGO aims at continuous training for much needed Syrian medical staff
Khaled Almilaji is doing his postgraduate studies at the University of Toronto and is no stranger to providing medical care under makeshift conditions. He was at home in Aleppo in 2011 when government forces fired on peaceful protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, igniting a war that to date has resulted in at least 400,000 civilian deaths.
Avicenna hospital is the latest project by the Sustainable International Medical Relief Organization (SIMRO), an NGO that Almilaji formed five years ago to protect patients and doctors from aerial attacks by moving healthcare facilities underground. The organization runs through a network of field officers on the ground in Syria and Turkey. As well as providing a safe place to get medical care, Avicenna has partnered with Brown University’s Humanitarian Innovation Initiative and the University of Toronto to provide continuous training for at least 350 doctors, nurses and administrative staff in Syria.
Almilaji hopes that most of the medical personnel at the hospital will be Syrian doctors and specialists who were forced to flee regime-controlled areas. “Avicenna will provide a safe environment that will attract this category [of doctors] to come back to Idlib from Turkey, where there are hundreds near the borders in Gaziantep, Antakya, Urfa and Mersin,” he says.
Source: www.newsdeeply.com