Blog 2: Syria Health Crisis

     Four million of Syria's population are in need of urgent assistance. Syria is having all sorts of health issues between water-borne diseases, burn victims, and the opposition keeping vaccines from being transported. Hospitals are short of medicine, the Health Ministry has run out of trauma treatments, and surgeons are fleeing so hospitals are closing. People are scared of going to the hospitals due to the opposition controlling the roads, so they are going directly to the surgeons' homes, which is causing misfortunes for these surgeons. About 78% of Syria's ambulances are damaged and many of those are not even functional. However, due to the fighting over there and the misuse of ambulances as a fighter transport, the U.N agency will no longer supply new ambulances. One of the biggest concerns is the sanitation system with the breakdown of water. The number of water-borne diseases continues to rise. Chlorine gas is usually used to purify water but it has been banned over the fear of it being used as a chemical weapon. Recently UNICEF has been importing sodium chloride as an alternative way of water purification.
     When looking at the burns hospital, there is an abundance of patients that are showing up due to the explosions from the opposition. These explosions are hitting high-populated areas and many women and children are the victims of these burns. Serum is needed for operations and for trauma but it cannot be accessed because it's about 2 miles away on a road that is controlled by the opposition. Earlier, when I mentioned the vaccines not being able to be transported, this is because the planes carrying the doses of vaccines were shot at last week.
     Syria is having a difficult time, to say the least. Now, more than half of their hospitals have been damaged and more than a third are out of service. Women have been going to the open hospitals to obtain medicine, bandages, and broad-spectrum antibiotics. This is a good indication that patients are being looked after in their homes. It's sad to see how people are living over there but without taking out the opposition, Syria is going to continue to get worse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/syria-dirty-water-diseases_n_2624118.html

Page Odom
February 7th, 2013
2:40 pm