- Title: Syria sanctions indirectly hit children's cancer treatment
- Date: 15th March 2017
- Summary: DAMASCUS, SYRIA (RECENT - FEBRUARY 20, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL IN DAMASCUS VARIOUS OF CHILDREN WITH CANCER IN HOSPITAL DAMASCUS, SYRIA (RECENT - FEBRUARY 22, 2017) (REUTERS) GENERAL MANAGER OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, MAZEN AL-HADDAD, IN HIS OFFICE SIGN READING (Arabic): "GENERAL MANAGER MAZEN AL-HADDAD" (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) GENERAL MANAGER OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, MAZEN AL-HADDAD, SAYING: "First, Pharmex used to provide all the medicines. I think Pharmex cannot get the medicines now because of the economic sanctions. Most of the cancer medicines are European and because of the economic siege, they refuse to sell them to Pharmex. (JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION) Pharmex can now provide only five to ten per cent or 20 per cent of some medicines. Not all of them, of course." HADDAD (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) GENERAL MANAGER OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, MAZEN AL-HADDAD, SAYING: "Because of the high pressure on the children's hospital, sometimes children have to wait for their turn for between 15-20 days and this of course affects their illness, because they have to take their dosage every month or two according to their protocol. The longer the treatment is done, the worse the child can be affected." DAMASCUS, SYRIA (RECENT - FEBRUARY 20, 2017) (REUTERS) WOMEN WAITING TO GET MEDICINES VARIOUS OF EXECUTIVE MANAGER OF BASMA CHARITY, RIMA SALEM, DISTRIBUTING MEDICINES VARIOUS OF CANCER MEDICINES SALEM SPEAKING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) EXECUTIVE MANAGER OF BASMA CHARITY, RIMA SALEM, SAYING: "The medicine was affected because we had a small part, which is 30 per cent, that the hospital could not provide and Basma was founded to provide this percentage. This percentage became very high. I don't know the exact number for each centre, but the percentage reached 70-80 percent." VARIOUS OF CHILDREN AT HOSPITAL (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) OWNER OF CLOTHES SHOP, MONZER AL-HELOU, SAYING: "Those who suffer from this disease and nobody has helped them, what can they do? I lived in misery and people told me leave him to God. Does this mean that I should let him die in my hands?" VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WAITING IN HOSPITAL
- Embargoed: 29th March 2017 15:48
- Keywords: hospital sanctions healthcare children cancer war Syria
- Location: DAMASCUS, SYRIA
- City: DAMASCUS, SYRIA
- Country: Syria
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Military Conflicts
- Reuters ID: LVA001682M9MV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: In the cancer ward at Damascus Children's Hospital, doctors are struggling with a critical shortage of specialist drugs to treat their young patients - and it's not just due to the general chaos of the Syrian civil war.
Local and World Health Organization (WHO) officials also blame Western sanctions for severely restricting pharmaceutical imports, even though medical supplies are largely exempt from measures imposed by the United States and European Union.
Six years of conflict have brought the Syrian health service, once one of the best in the Middle East, close to collapse. Fewer than half of the country's hospitals are fully functioning and numbers of doctors have dived.
On top of this, cuts in health spending by the government that is fighting a hugely expensive war, a drastic fall in the Syrian currency and indirect effects of the sanctions are all deepening the misery of patients who need foreign-made drugs.
One private charity, Basma, is trying to help out by funding cancer drugs for poor families. The proportion of patients who need assistance has risen from about 30 percent to nearly 80 percent since the war began, executive manager Rima Salem said.
At the children's hospital in government-held Damascus, the waiting room outside the cancer ward was crowded with relatives, many of whom had brought clothes, mattresses and blankets in case they had to spend long time far from their homes outside the city. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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