Despite the huge challenges, ActionAid has already been able to reach 104,778 people through search and rescue operations, providing essential food, shelter and mental health support as well as crucially, offering women safe spaces to come during the long days.
- Immediately after the earthquakes, ActionAid youth volunteers reached 6,330 people through search and rescue operations and emergency medical and mental health care.
- Providing clean water and hygiene kits to over 30,000 people.
- Mobile Mental Health units are providing a lifeline to hundreds of traumatised children living in remote areas.
- Helped to fund a new hospital in North-east Syria which has already helped 5,275 displaced women and children received urgent medical care from a dedicated team of nurses, midwives, and doctors.
In the ActionAid-funded hospital, healthcare workers are fighting to safely deliver babies amid poverty, extreme heat, shelling, a growing cost of living crisis and precious few resources.
Below are some of the stories of women who were affected by the quakes and who have since received care at an ActionAid-funded hospital.
Amani
‘The earthquake greatly affected our work because hospitals were destroyed and had to be reconstructed.’ Amani is Head Nurse at an ActionAid-funded hospital in north-west Syria. She tells us that a lot of hospitals were destroyed by the earthquake which has left communities without access to medical support and healthcare workers without the vital medical supplies they need to treat patients. Since the hospital has opened, Amani has seen dozens of patients arrive to access healthcare services, including pregnant women and new mothers who need pregnancy and antenatal care. She says the hospital is there to serve women living in the nearby IDP camps.
Safaa
Safaa, a mother of three, with her eight-month-old son. Safaa lives in a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) and benefits from services from an ActionAid funded hospital. Safaa lives in a camp because her home was destroyed in the war. She is a mum of three children – her youngest is eight months old. She had been breastfeeding her youngest when the earthquake hit and dropped her she was so frightened. Her older son had a successful hernia operation at the hospital, and she told us that the services at the hospital and the doctor and nurses were excellent. Previously, getting to a hospital was both confusing and a challenge. However, this hospital is just a 15-minute away. Safaa feels welcome by the staff at the hospital, and this was especially so when her son was admitted. She is relieved that the hospital has medicine and facilities. She explains that the suffering being experienced in the camp is mainly due to poverty, but the heat and the cold also affects everyone.