With funding from the Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD), and in co-operation with Qatar Charity (QC), four primary healthcare centres have been established and operated within Syria, at an estimated cost of QR7,300,000 to benefit 144,000 people in northern Syria.
The medical centres, which have been in operation since August 2019, are located in Idlib.
This project aims to improve the medical situation in northern Syria, in co-ordination with local and international organisations operating in the health sector and United Nations co-ordination and technical bodies such as Health Cluster, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef.
The deputy director-general of Development Projects at QFFD, Misfer bin Hamad al-Shahwani, emphasised that QFFD has contributed to the efforts made to fight the coronavirus in the camps and areas of refugees and the displaced in northern Syria and Turkey, by implementing several medical projects to serve refugees and the people of the host country, focusing on providing medical equipment and personnel, protection, food security, etc.
He added that the project works on rehabilitating, restoring, equipping and supporting health centres with medical personnel and supplies, providing primary health services, organising health awareness campaigns and promoting public health in co-ordination with the Early Warning, Alert and Response Network (EWARN) of WHO. The project also works on dealing with non-communicable diseases and providing preventive and clinical services that include reproductive health, child health, mental health and the nutrition programme that includes support to the Nutrition and Food Survey Programme in society.
Further, the project publishes and distributes health awareness items, trains medical teams to provide treatment services for patients with acute malnutrition at hospitals, distributes food and supplements, and supports nutrition programmes for infants and children.
Every month, 15,000 patients, mostly women, children and the elderly, receive healthcare services free of charge at the four centres.
Ahmed al-Rumaihi, director of the International Relief and Partnerships Department at QC, said the regional office of Qatar Charity in Turkey has developed a contingency plan at the emergence of the Covid-19 to adjust the medical service at these centres.
The regional office has set up a triage camp at the entrance of each centre to sort patients and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. These centres have also been linked with community isolation centres, of which Qatar Charity is one of the most important supporters.