Idlib’s medical situation is on the verge of collapse
The Russian Air Force alongside The Syrian Regime have repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to destroy any resistance to Bashar al Assad.
Russia has long been carrying out systematic attacks against hospitals and clinics in revolutionary-held areas as part of a strategy to help Bashar al Assad secure victory in the nine-year-old war.
Between 2011 and 2017, there were reportedly 492 attacks on healthcare in Syria, killing 847 medical personnel. From January to July, 2018, another 119 attacks were recorded, mostly affecting East Ghouta, eastern Aleppo, Dara’a, and Idlib.
Exact figures are difficult to track but according to the World Health Organizatiom (WHO), 70% of total worldwide attacks on health care facilities, ambulances, services and personnel have occurred within Syria.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, opened an investigation into the hospital bombings in August. The investigation, still going on, is meant in part to determine why hospitals that voluntarily added their locations to a United Nations-sponsored deconfliction list, which was provided to Russia and other combatants to prevent them from being attacked, nevertheless came under attack.
Syrian health care workers said they believed that the United Nations list actually became a target menu for the Russian and Syrian air forces.
Syria's war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their wrecked country.
The critical condition is growing mainly because of the shortage of human and material resources.
Of the Syrian medical personnel, only about 700 doctors are left and active in the Idlib province. This is due to the massive migration, which includes many Syrians, and leaves a great gap of available personnel and specialists able to respond to the growing demand of care.
The WHO recommends that a doctor to patient ratio of one doctor to 1000 patients be held in normal circumstances, in the Idlib province the ratio is closer to one to every 6000 patients.
The health infrastructures still in place are in critical condition since it is difficult to access electricity, fuel and drinking water.
Doctors of the now out of service hospitals are trying to provide support to the remaining hospitals in the Idlib province and the border towns of Idlib.
However, medical service is now even more limited due to a lack of medical equipment, medicine, and an ongoing fuel crisis. There are hospitals that will run out of reserve fuel in a few days, and will make things worse than they are.
The remaining functioning hospitals are now packed with heavily injured civilians, with doctors forced to make hard choices. Prioritizing the heavily injured at the expense of being unable to treat others.
The Syrian Regime alongside the Russian Air Force have appeared to have started yet another new offensive on the south of Idlib, causing unstability in the region and mass migration.
As a result, charities and donors to the medical sector have become reluctant to invest in such dangerous regions. In the recent months it is reported that external medical aid has been reduced by 30-35%, leaving hospitals and health centers scavenging whatever resources they can from other operating hospitals in the area.
Amidst all the different challenges that the Syrian people in Idlib face, they constantly try to improve their situation and find ways to provide the best possible services.
However, the gap left behind by the professionals who have left their lands and the enormous shortages in material resources due to lack of funding is slowly becoming a gap, which hopes of being refilled are drifting away into the distance.
