We don’t need to send people to other parts of the governorate where it takes two hours to refer critical cases. Everything can be performed in this building.
Cewê comes from Mosul, Iraq. She moved to Akrê with her family to flee Daesh’s occupation. Her daughter-in-law was taken to the hospital there to give birth to her child and Cewê is very happy everything went well with the delivery. “Her first baby,” she says, “was born naturally, but died. Now, the hospital is better. There were no doctors then. There were diseases when babies were born.”
Akrê emergency and maternity hospital was recently given an additional building to allow it to have operating rooms and welcome more patients than it used to. With the financial support of the EU through the Trust Fund, Italian NGO AISPO has worked with Kurdish authorities and medical staff at Akrê hospital to make the new building fully functional and compliant with international safety standards. More than 1,5000,000 people in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have now access to better healthcare thanks to the rehabilitation of the hospital.
“When a woman wants to give birth, is sick or needs to be examined, she is taken [to Akrê hospital],” explains Cewê, praising the newly functioning facilities. Not only the hospital is able to take care of a bigger number of people in need, the rehabilitation also meant that the number of referrals to external clinics dropped and surgery waiting lists were also reduced.
“We don’t need to send people to other parts of the governorate where it takes two hours to refer critical cases. Everything can be performed in this building,” says the hospital’s director, Dr Salik Mustafa. This has also had a positive impact on the overall working environment: surgeries can be performed more safely and the staff feel less stressed. “At the same time,” he continues, “hygiene and sterilisations [are prioritised].”
“This project is the beginning, the first part of a more comprehensive rehabilitation of this building. In the future, we are planning on renovating the maternity and delivery wards, and on building an intensive care unit for children” concludes Dr Salik.