Syria’s shattered health system is forcing health workers to engage in brutal medical practices and a series of epidemics have left millions of children exposed to a plethora of deadly diseases, Save the Children says in a new report.
The report, ‘A Devastating Toll: the Impact of Three Years of War on the Health of Syria’s Children’, sheds light on a broken health system and its consequences: children not just dying from violent means but from diseases that would previously either have been treatable or prevented.
The extent of the health system collapse in Syria is borne out in many horrific ways, including:
- Children having limbs amputated because clinics don't have necessary equipment for appropriate treatment
- Newborn babies dying in their incubators during power cuts
- Patients being knocked out with metal bars owing to a lack of anaesthesia
- Patients undergoing potentially deadly person-to-person blood transfusions
“This humanitarian crisis has fast become a health crisis,” Save the Children’s Regional Director Roger Hearn said. “Children inside are enduring barbaric conditions. Simply finding a doctor is a matter of luck; finding one with the necessary equipment and medication to provide proper treatment has become almost impossible. The desperate measures to which medical personnel are resorting to keep children alive are increasingly harrowing.”
The full article continues at http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/collapse-syrian-health-system-puts-childrens-lives-risk/5/184085 on Voxy’s website.