Syria faces healthcare challenges on many fronts: WHO

From Hepatitis A to polio to whooping cough, Syria faces many challenges for health care professionals there, says the WHO's media and advocacy officer Tarik Jasarevic.

KUWAIT CITY // Medical facilities are constantly caught in the crossfire of fighting in Syria and healthcare professionals have no safe places to carry out their work, a World Health Organisation official said on Monday.

Speaking to The National ahead of the third annual Syria donors' conference, Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO media and advocacy officer, said he spent two weeks in Damascus and Aleppo to better understand the conditions that the UN agency was working under in Syria.

When Mr Jasarevic arrived in a regime-held area of Aleppo, a doctor partnered with WHO could not leave the hospital to meet him. He was needed because three mortar shells had hit a public square, killing 16 and wounding 42.

One of those killed was a doctor who worked at the hospital, a 27-year-old woman. “She happened to be in the area where the mortars hit,” Mr Jasarevic said.

Mr Jasarevic highlighted the lack of safe places for healthcare providers in the country as the uprising against the Assad regime enters its fifth year.

Hospitals are regularly destroyed during the fighting. The surviving medical staff try to cram themselves, and patients, into hospitals in safe areas.

“It is really overcrowded,” he said.

One big success that the WHO had in Syria was aiding a campaign that helped stop the resurgence of polio last year.

However, the WHO continues to face huge challenges. There are now less functioning ambulances, less health centres and hospitals, less water and electricity, and 45 per cent of healthcare workers have left the country, Mr Jasarevic said.

Hepatitis A could become a problem too, with thousands of cases reported last year and vaccination rates having fallen drastically.

“This is a really big issue. We are really worried, especially with the summer coming, that we will have more waterborne diseases,” he said.

Whooping cough is another disease that could be on the horizon.

He said the WHO maintained a network of more than 600 healthcare providers across Syria who kept it updated on conditions so that it could respond quickly to outbreaks of disease.

Aid that goes to helping those hurt in fighting is a priority, but basic health care is also a challenge.

Before the conflict Syria was producing 90 per cent of its medicine; now that amount is down by 60 to 70 per cent.

Mental-health facilities are needed for people traumatised by the war and also those with chronic mental disease. A mentally ill person might not be able to receive treatment because their doctor fled the country, Mr Jasarevic said.

Health care facilities need to be refurbished and more health care providers are needed in the country. Basic nutrition, clean water and primary health care is also needed.

There are so many health issues in Syria, it would not be fair to focus on one, he said.