The ICRC’s Weapon Traumatology Training Centre
Sharing skills to save and rebuild lives of weapon-wounded patients
The ICRC’s Weapon Traumatology Training Centre (WTTC) was set up in 2014 to deliver a comprehensive clinical treatment of weapon wounded individuals, while at the same time ensuring the transfer of know-how to surgeons and other medical personnel by an international team of health professionals from the ICRC.
The WTTC is located in Lebanon’s northern city, Tripoli, in two local hospitals: Dar el-Chifa and Dar el-Zahra. While the surgical ward is in Dar el-Chifa, the post-operative centre is located in the latter.
In 2016 alone, 278 patients were hospitalised and 561 operations were performed. The ICRC’s team in Dar Al Zahra continued to provide a comprehensive treatment with pain management consultation in addition to physical rehabilitation and psychological support.
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How does the ICRC help weapon-wounded patients at the WTTC?
Weapon wounds are some of the most complex injuries to treat and operate, particularly in Lebanon, where millions have fled because of violence in neighbouring countries and where internal disputes often leave people with severe injuries caused by weapons and explosive ordnance.
Through the stories of two of our patients, we learn how the staff at the WTTC helped those injured by weapons:
Patients are not just fitted with prostheses at the WTTC, they also receive psycho-social support to help address the trauma they have experienced.
“As part of the psychological rehabilitation sessions, we explain to patients that the way they feel and think is absolutely normal after what they’ve been through,” says Nercesse Armani, a psychologist at the WTTC. “Mental health has been a major challenge for us because of cultural attitudes. So we structure sessions in a dynamic and participatory manner.”
Psychologists at the WTTC hold group therapy sessions with patients and also one-on-one psychotherapy consultations.
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Meet Our Patients
Six-year-old Shahed was on her way to school in Syria when a rocket exploded nearby. She was injured in her right thigh and is currently at the WTTC. She is half-way through her 6-month-long physiotherapy programme and will need another surgery.
Despite it all, Shahed still smiles and laughs and waits for the day where she can leave the hospital and play with her friends:
Mohammad was only 6-years-old when he became a refugee. At 8, he was badly burned in an accident.
Mohammad’s family couldn’t afford to pay his hospital fees, so he was transferred to our care at the WTTC in Tripoli, Lebanon. He dreams of one day being able to leave the hospital and return home to Syria.
When Ahmad was only five years old, a mortar landed on his house in Idlib, Syria while he was playing in the garden and he immediately lost both his legs.
At the age of nine in 2014, Ahmad was admitted to the WTTC in Tripoli where surgeons work to ‘clean up’ Ahmad’s stumps and put an end to the pain the little boy was in for nearly four years. After a year of extensive physical rehabilitation, Ahmad received two prosthetic legs at the beginning of 2016 and today, he is running around, playing football and racing his brothers.
Severely burned in an explosion in 2014, Moussa was unable to speak or eat properly and his injuries caused him much suffering. Now, following a long and arduous operation by surgeon Dr Enrique Steiger, Moussa has been given the chance to resume a normal life.
After fleeing Syria, Jamil and his family thought they were safe in Lebanon until an unexploded bomb from the 2006 conflict with Israel shattered their lives.
The explosion ripped through Jamil’s house, killing his eldest son and injuring him badly along with his two other sons, Hassan and Mahmoud.
The ICRC transferred the family to the WTTC to treat the father and his two sons for their injuries.
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A Q&A session with one of the ICRC’s surgeons at the WTTC
We sat down with Dr. Richard Gosselin, a surgeon who has been with the ICRC for more than two decades to discuss the services the ICRC provides at the WTTC and how it helps rebuild lives shattered by war and violence.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been present in Lebanon since 1967 and has carried out its humanitarian work through different periods of conflict, including Lebanon’s 15-year-long civil war from 1975–1990.
For more information on our activities in Lebanon, please click here.
Contact:
Patricia Rey, Communications coordinator
rpatricia@icrc.org , T. +961 71 802 876 , Twitter @PReyCICR
