Care in the refugee camps in Greece

Hospital of Barcelona

 

Since August last year, professionals fromthe Sant Joan de Déu Mother and Child Hospital and the Hospital Clinic inBarcelona have been providing health care to the refugees living on two Greekislands, Kos y Chios, in a total of 3 refugee camps.

 

These professionals are working inconjunction with one of the most firmly established NGOs in that territory –the Woman and Health Alliance (WAHA) - and are meeting the basic health careneeds of more than 12,000 people, most of them children. This project is beingimplemented in collaboration with the Department of Health, InstitutionalAffairs and Relations, and Transparency, through the Catalonia DevelopmentCooperation Agency.

 

Cooperation in the refugee camps is beingprovided in consecutive 4-week shifts, by the Sant Joan de Déu Mother and ChildHospital which is seconding 12 professionals, and by a variety of specialistsof the Hospital Clínic to evaluate and take stock of the situation. Theseprofessionals are emergency care and ICU physicians and nurses, surgeons, andinpatient care professionals, psychiatrists, midwives, and above allpaediatricians and gynaecologists and staff nurses.

 

These Sant Joan de Déu professionals areproviding preventive hygiene and health care to stave off infections andepidemics, looking after children with chronic illnesses such as diabetes,asthma and heart disease and common childhood diseases such as chicken pox.They also evaluate the nutritional status of the people and administervaccinations and dental health care. Women are cared for during pregnancy andalso in other fields, such as treatment for genitourinary infections and sexually transmitted diseases. Theyare trying to assist all the people needing psychological help to cope withtheir dramatic ordeal.

 

According to the UNHCR, there are now 44refugee camps in Greece in 3 different geographical areas: Athens, NorthernThessalonica and the islands. This makes an estimated population of over 60,000people of whom 38% are children. Half of them come from Syria, and about 25percent from Afghanistan, as well as other refugees from countries such asIraq.

 

Civil society can help us to send healthcare personnel to the refugee camps by making a donation to this bank account:SOS Refugiados ES38 2100 5000 5302 0015 1527 



 

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