Qatar Red Crescent Expands Programmes to Help Syrian Refugees

Doha, October 02 (QNA) - Qatari Red Crescent (QRC) is expanding its programmes to help Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan which focused from the outset on satisfying the affected people emergency needs including medical care, provision of food, shelter and psychological support, according to a QRC informed source. The source told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that medical operations programmes has been expanded recently to cover wounded Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. As part of the initiatives of the State of Qatar to provide humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees and displaced people, Qatar Red Crescent is involved in "We Are All Syria" which was launched from Qatar last July with the support Qatar charitable organizations to extend a helping hand and to respond to calls of relief, and to provide medical treatment to Syrian refugees on the Syrian-Turkish borders at Bab Al-Salama refugee camp. Qatari Red Crescent teams sensed, during their field work on the Syrian-Turkish border, the dimensions of the poor conditions the displaced people and refugees are living through with their suffering expected to exacerbate with the advent of winter season. For her part, Maha Lahham, a volunteer doctor working with Qatar Red Crescent's Medical Centre at Bab Al-Salam has shed light on the poor conditions and suffering of the Syrian refugees at the camp on the Turkish-Syrian borders due to malnutrition, diseases and the influx of a growing numbers of refugees on the border, stressing that there is a significant shortfall in tents, sanitation facilities, food, drinking water, clothing and basic needs as well as medical care. Such problems require the mustering of everyone's effort to get them out of their plight, Dr Lahham said. In an interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA) after returning to Doha, she added that the Dar Al-Salam crossing point's medical centre was run by a local volunteer doctor to provide primary health care for displaced people stranded on the Syrian-Turkish border, explaining that there was no specific work system and matters were disorganized in the absence of qualified staff at the centre and in the absence of technical and financial support before it was adopted by the "We Are All Syria" campaign. Dr. Maha said the number of Syrian refugees at Bab Al-Salam refugee camp is around 7000 people living in an open area in very difficult humanitarian conditions and between 50 to 60 per cent of them are children, in addition to the large numbers women and the elderly who are all relying heavily on aid. She noted that the number of patients who visit the medical centre on daily basis is between 300 to 400 people seen by three doctors (an internal diseases specialist, a surgeon, a pediatrician and an obstetrician). Dr. Lahham explained that due to the weak capacities of the centre and the lack of medicines, conditions of many of the patients did not improve but nearly two weeks ago and after Qatari Red Crescent took over the centre and provided medicines, medical personnel and devices, the situation remarkably improved. Dr. Maha added that the women's diseases section receives 80 visitors 20 per cent of them are heavily pregnant women with 5% of them needing caesarean section surgeries carried out by the centre's doctor at I'zaz city private hospital.(QNA)