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Yemen

Qatar Charity's Latest Free Specialized Medical Camp on the Yemeni Island of Socotra

Qatar Charity's fifth annual specialized medical camp in Hadibo, Socotra Island, Yemen has started this week. The camp will benefit up to 6000 at-risk people, providing a range of free services including eye surgery, gastrointestinal endoscopy and urinary tract procedures.

The island of Socotra lies more than 300 kilometers away from the nearest Yemeni shore – and the majority of its residents are from poor or low-income families. Other reasons for the location of the project are difficulty of access due to few flights and expensive prices as well as a lack of regular ferry services meaning that travel to and from the island takes several days. Given these factors, Qatar Charity sees that providing health and treatment services on the island is a matter of importance in order to alleviate the suffering of high numbers of people who are forced to delay or go without treatment due to difficulty of accessing treatment and the high costs involved.

Camp participants will have access to more than twenty doctors in different specializations including eyes, gastrointestinal endoscopy, internal medicine, general surgery, mental illness, children, skin, urinary tract, nervous system, x-rays and dental. The majority of the participating doctors are university professors, consultants and holders of Arab medical fellowships in different specializations. A team of technicians in the field of operations, laboratories, radiology and nursing are participating in the camp At the same time, Qatar Charity and its partner hospitals in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa are continuing their next phase of the ‘Qatari Program for Open Heart Surgery’. The General Revolutionary Hospital, Lebanon Hospital for Surgery and Heart Diseases and the Hospital of the University for Science and Technology are undertaking 3000 heart surgery procedures at a rate of approximately 750 per year over four years. The program especially aims to provide medical assistance and conduct surgeries children with congenital malformations. In addition, heart valve replacement, bypass and repairing holes in hearts are the most common form of surgeries conducted.

The program also aims to build the capacity of Yemeni medical staff and build a database about heart disease in Yemen to help the actors in the field to draw deeper and clearer policies and building a strong and transparent program met for replication in other countries.

1 February 2015