Cape Town - The earthquakes that hit Türkiye and Syria have killed more than 45 000 people.
In north-west Syria, a largely landlocked region, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams present on the ground deployed an emergency plan as of February 6.
MSF teams have offered to support hospitals by providing medical and material aid to those affected, by mobilising many of the 500 members of its staff active in the country.
The MSF hospital in Atmeh, which usually specialises in caring for severe burns, has made numerous donations of medical and non-medical equipment and seconded its surgeons as reinforcements to several hospitals in the region.
Additionally, numerous donations have been made from MSF local projects to 30 hospitals in the region.
“On February 6, we quickly understood that we were facing a catastrophic situation,” MSF Atmeh hospital deputy director Mohammad Darwish said.
“The destruction was massive in the area; we launched our emergency plan less than three hours after the first earthquake and put our staff on alert.”
Atmeh teams have started to send medical equipment to around 10 hospitals in the region, to Bab al-Hawa, Darat Izza, Idlib, and Atarib.
“All the hospitals were overwhelmed, including ours,” said Samih Kaddour, the director of the Aqrabat hospital, specialising in orthopaedic and reconstructive surgery. “The MSF teams were the first to help us and to share their resources.
They gave us materials, including making casts and sterilising wounds. We received 800 people in the emergency room, 250 of whom needed surgical treatment.”
Since then, the time window for emergency lives saving has closed.
MSF surgeons from the hospital were also sent to certain health facilities in the region to help their colleagues who were dealing with many injured.
“I went to a hospital in the immediate vicinity of Türkiye,” said Dr Mohammad Zaitoun. “Due to the closure of the border, and the impossibility of receiving external support or transferring the wounded, this put immense pressure on us.
There were many wounded, the medical staff were exhausted. We did our best, together with the MSF teams in Atmeh. As a surgeon, I was in the operating room.
“We had never witnessed such an influx of wounded, except perhaps during the bombardments or massacres that took place in the region.”
Ambulances from the Atmeh hospital were also involved. They made it possible to transfer patients between hospitals.
As for the MSF mobile clinics, their intervention plan was adapted to the situation, and they were dispatched to places where the victims of the earthquake were flocking.
The teams that make up the mobile clinics have been working regularly for several years, providing health care to people living in the many camps in the region, which host war-displaced people.
They are visiting the places where people who have lost their homes are taking refuge daily, whether in Sarmada, Kammouneh or Al Dana.
“We still do not have a clear vision of the situation in the wider area of Atmeh,” said Darwish. “We just know that the hospitals are full of wounded and dead people and that the needs are immense. The people of the region need everything.
“We immediately opened our logistics warehouses and distributed hundreds of essential items, but it is not enough. Some 2 500 blankets have been donated to hospitals for their patients, and hundreds of kits of necessities have been distributed to families, among others.”
In the immediate future, MSF teams in the region are drawing on their emergency stock, while waiting for an international supply, which has been hampered by the political tension surrounding the landlocked region.
Until the earthquakes, Bab al-Hawa was the only crossing point for humanitarian aid from Türkiye to the landlocked region of north-western Syria.
“Usually, we can transfer our most severely burnt patients to appropriate health structures in Türkiye,” said Darwish. “The MSF hospital in Atmeh provides essential care, but also has its limitations and can only adequately care for people with moderate burns.
Today, there are no more specialised hospital beds in the governorate of Idlib and one cannot cross the border.”
In north-western Syria, the earthquakes are disrupting a region that has more than 2 million displaced people living in camps and where access to health care is lacking.
“We are still performing life-saving surgeries on crush syndrome victims.
This pathology, which results from a prolonged compression of the muscles, can be fatal by causing saturation and renal failure. The situation is indescribable and for now, we are alone,” Kaddour said.
Cape Times