Since the beginning of 2022, INTERSOS and SARC have made more than 5,000 medical visits and distributed drugs to patients who would otherwise not have had access to health services
After eleven years of conflict and in the light of the current dire economic conditions faced by the country, Syrian population has no or limited access to primary health services. With the funds of the Syrian Humanitarian Fund (SHF, OCHA Pooled Funds), and then thanks to the support of Stichting Vluchteling (SV, the Netherland Refugee Foundation) in Syria INTERSOS established, in partnership with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), three mobile health units in the governorate of Hama. The mobile health units are operating daily in rural and hard to reach areas where no other/ or limited health services are available.
In 2021, Syria experienced several major outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases, including COVID-19, acute diarrhoea and leishmaniasis. The principal risk factors contributing to this emergence and rapid spread of epidemic diseases include acute and protracted humanitarian crises resulting in fragile health systems, increased population mobility, climate change and drought, environmental deterioration, weak surveillance and limited laboratory diagnostic capacity, and a decline in affordable health services.
INTERSOS mobile health units are providing paediatric services, sexual and reproductive health and primary health care consultations. When interviewed, our paediatrician said:” Through the services we provide to patients, I forget all the fatigue and the difficulties related to the economic situation. The economic conditions of the local community are bad and when children are sick they need to travel to get the clinical examination they need because of the general lack of paediatricians and health centres in the areas we serve. I am glad that we help the most vulnerable communities through primary health care and drugs provision, thanks to everyone who contributed to providing these services to vulnerable people who deserve it.”
From the beginning of 2022 INTERSOS and SARC provided more than 5,000 consultations and provision of drugs to patients that wouldn’t have otherwise any access to health services. INTERSOS has been present in Syria since 2019 providing protection, health and education life-saving humanitarian services to internally displaced people, returnees and host communities.