DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Iktimal Younis, an employee in the public sector, ignored the change in the shape of her neck after suffering from a diseased gland, as she was not ready for a diagnosis and the costly treatment journey.
Her health condition became critical, so after her child passed high school exams, she went to a doctor in Hama city, where she resides.
The doctors she visited told her that her condition was concerning, that she had to undergo more x-rays and analyses that were not available in Hama, and that her only option was to go to the capital Damascus.
Even in Damascus, she has either to wait in queues waiting for her turn to enter the government al-Bayrouni Hospital or to go to a private hospital that she cannot afford.
Younis’ story is the story of many Syrians. After the daily depletion of the health sector, its faults began to appear every day, and the health insurance, which was relied upon despite all its shortcomings, became paralyzed after the high prices of everything and the objection of contracting companies at the specified price.
Daily victims
Damascus resident Waha al-Dous (a pseudonym) said that her mother had coronavirus when she entered Syria coming from the Gulf countries. “When her health condition deteriorated, we took her to a private hospital, which takes four million Syrian pounds for each day at the ICU.”
“My mother died two days after she entered the ICU. The problem is not the amount we paid, which reached more than six million Syrian pounds for a couple of days at the hospital, but the poor medical services provided to my mother,” al-Dous added.
Earlier, the hospital contracted with doctors under certain conditions, but now the most important condition is that the doctors agree to work for low salaries, a doctor that left the hospital said.
Only a select few can afford the expenses of private hospitals in Syria; for example, a hospital affiliated with civil organizations takes one million SYP per night at the ICU.
A nurse who worked in private hospitals said that in the beginning, the hospitals cared about securing preventative measures against coronavirus like gloves, sterilizers, and sterile clothes permanently, but now they care only about lowering costs.
Same case
Hospitals suffer from a shortage of everything, as many doctors emigrated and nurses retired and left work due to low wages and great pressure at work.
The health sector in Syria has lost most of its staff; the percentage of doctors who left the country during the years of war amounts to 20%, out of the number of doctors that reached 30,000 before 2011, according to unofficial statistics.
Moreover, the medicines that reach Syria are of low quality, despite Syria having a robust and well-known pharmaceutical industry before the war.
The sources of current imported medicines are limited to Iran, India, and Russia. In addition, there is locally produced medicine, which suffers from many problems due to high production costs resulting from the high costs of imported materials.
Bad alternative
Sami Ismail (a pseudonym), a civil engineer in Damascus, said that his wife had stage-one blood cancer. She was treated and her condition improved, so she returned to work.
However, her health condition deteriorated again, and when she returned to the hospital again, the European medicine with which she was treated the first time was not available, which prompted the medical staff to give her an alternative.
It turned out that the alternative medicine caused her death because “it caused the bone marrow to stop producing red blood cells, and she needed daily blood transfusions that were not available either, so she died at the age of 50.”
Among the problems that hospitals suffer from is that the import of medicines has been limited and secured through the Ministry of Health to reduce costs and expenses, an administrator in a government hospital told North Press.
“This causes a significant shortage of most of the medicines that hospitals need, even emergency drugs, which the patients are often asked to bring at their own expense to deal with an emergency situation,” according to the administrator.
Syrians say that if any member of any family is sick, it is like a “disaster” with the shortage of everything.