Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has received a donation of QR1mn from Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani.
This comes in support of QRCS’s efforts to enhance the medical sector in Syria and provide treatment for thousands of patients and victims of the Syrian crisis.
The donation will go towards a project of rebuilding, equipping and operating the healthcare centre of Darkush, a town in the Idlib governorate. The project will serve 70,000 inhabitants as well as displaced people from Lattakia
and Aleppo.
This number is expected to rise as clashes are escalating and may lead to a wave of forced migration, QRCS has said in a statement.
The objectives of the project are to offer primary healthcare for the host community and evacuees, promote health awareness, reduce communicable diseases through early diagnosis and medication, and vaccination of children in
partnership with peers.
Under the project, the outpatient centre of Darkush will be rehabilitated into a standard primary healthcare facility with a wide range of specialties - paediatrics, internal medicine, gynaecology & obstetrics, dentistry, dermatology, general surgery, orthopaedics, dressing and laboratory.
A bilateral agreement was signed with the local authorities to license the centre and another with the local partner to avoid duplication of efforts and ensure integration of health services. Accordingly, QRCS will offer primary healthcare, while the partner will provide secondary healthcare.
Also, QRCS will undertake the logistical tasks of rehabilitating the building and infrastructure, connecting the water/power supply and sewerage system, procuring the medical/stationery supplies, furnishing and installing the equipment, securing the medication, hiring and training the medical and administrative staff and co-ordinating with local and international medical institutions working there.
This project comes in response to the critical humanitarian situation in the area, which weighed heavily on the medical sector. There is no primary healthcare in the district and the nearest one is in Al Janudiyah, 12km away. More people are fleeing Aleppo city and countryside as a result of the fighting.
Most health facilities in the area are out of service, either due to lack of funding or direct bombing. Transportation to farther towns is difficult and risky compared to Darkush, which is the area’s largest and safest town.