A single hospital with limited capability for more than 45,000 people in northeastern Syria
Ein Issa – North-Press Agency
Yahya Omar / Fayyad Muhammad
The only hospital in the town of Ein Issa, which is administratively located in the district of Tal-Abyad, lacks sufficient medical staff, equipment, laboratories, and operation rooms, the hospital provides first aid to patients before moving them to Raqqa or Kobani.
The population of Ein Issa and its countryside is more than 45 thousand people in addition to 13 thousand IDPs living in a camp located on the outskirts of the town.
The residents of Ein Issa and its countryside complain about the lack of health centers and medical services, where there is only one hospital that lacks specialized medical staff, equipment, laboratories, and operation rooms, while officials blame the lack of services on international organizations’ inactiveness and the lack of support for the health sector in the city.
Abd Awad Al-Zedan, 40 years, a resident of Ein Issa, said in an interview with North-Press that the way doctors and nurses deal with people in the hospital is good, but the number of doctors is very few, and the hospital lacks medical devices and laboratories, as he called for expanding the hospital and providing all specialties.
The only hospital
Dr. Muhammad Fadel, the director of (martyr Omar Alloush) Hospital told North-Press about the services provided by the hospital, the only hospital in the city, which was started as an ambulance point, “Then we opened an internist department, the department of emergencies, a paramedics department, a basic medical laboratory, blood transfusion services and a pharmacy distributing first and second treatment line free of charge, and we are now working on opening a children’s section and an operations room, as they’ll soon be ready to operate”.
Fadel pointed out that the serious cases that need operations and special care are transferred into the hospitals of Kobani, Raqqa, and Tal Abyad, noting that the support provided by the Health Board in Kobani, and the Directorate of Health in Tal Abyad is inadequate and that the international organizations did not provide any support, according to him.
Fadel demanded the concerned authorities to provide further support to meet the needs of the citizens, adding that the number of diagnoses had reached 3117 in the last month, 750 cases for the laboratory and 950 prescriptions dispensed by the hospital’s pharmacy.
Promises of improvement
For his part, the co-chair of the Department of Health in the Autonomous Administration of north and eastern Syria, Dr. Juan Mustafa, said that the infrastructure of the health sector was affected in general because of the war in Syria, specifically, the town of Ein Issa, as previously there weren’t any health centers.
“After the liberation of the town from ISIS, the Democratic Self-Administration opened some health centers in the countryside of Ein Issa,” Mustafa added, indicating the opening of an advanced medical point in the town, referring to (Martyr Omar Alloush) hospital.
Moreover, Mustafa pointed out that the study of the hospital’s project has been completed, as the medical point will turn into a hospital soon, noting that there is another project for the processing of a hospital, but will be delayed “because of inadequate resources”.
Regarding the administration’s plans to develop the health sector, the co-chair Juan Mustafa said that they have a plan of bringing in medical devices, doctors and create the appropriate conditions for that, considering that the first reason behind the delay of the health sector is the lack of medical staff.
It’s worth mentioning that north and eastern regions of Syria suffer the lack of health services and weak infrastructure, as a result of being destroyed and looted during the control of the Islamic State group (ISIS) and the battles launched by the Global Coalition-backed Syrian Democratic forces, over the past years.