One and a half years after the end of the military operations for the liberation of ISIS-controlled areas, the needs of the people returning to their homes are still massive. Telafar, a Turkman city west of Mosul, has witnessed large amounts of returnees over the past months. These returnees have been faced with the lack of basic services and have been unable to meet most of their needs. Before the city was seized by ISIS, Telafar had two hospitals and six primary healthcare centers (PHCCs) which were serving not only the city, but surrounding villages and districts as well. Immediately after the liberation only one of the hospitals and three of the primary healthcare centers were partially functioning.
INTERSOS, with the support of DG EU Humanitarian Aid (Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations) has been working in Telafar to re-establish and strengthen healthcare services for all members of the community, especially for the most vulnerable segments.
Over the past five months INTERSOS has been supporting two PHCCs in the city (alAmal and Shahid Sadr) with a combination of both hard and soft activities including: the rehabilitation of the centers and the provision of medical equipment, drugs, furniture and non-technical materials; the re-establishment of an Emergency Room in one of the PHCCs (Shahid Sadr), the financial and technical support to medical and non-medical staff, and the support and supervision of medical activities such as general primary healthcare, reproductive health, emergency services and referrals, nutrition monitoring and vaccination.
Five months into the project, extremely positive outcomes have been observed in all aspects of the project. Both medical staff and patients accessing the centers have voiced their appreciation of the high quality services and treatments available at the INTERSOS clinics. At this time these services are extremely rare and hardly-accessible in the region.
Over 18,778 women, girls, boys and men have benefitted from the range of medical services provided in the PHCCs, this includes 2,355 women and girls accessing specialized reproductive health services, which are almost completely absent in the districts west of Mosul.
INTERSOS, with the support of EU Humanitarian Aid, has been implementing activities since June 2018, setting up a system of services and capacities which not only provides high quality treatments, but will as well guarantee the continuous presence of primary and specialized healthcare when humanitarian actors will withdraw. These activities are aimed at ensuring long-lasting effects and more effectively supporting the relief of communities affected by years of displacement and war.