Published on 24 June 2013 in Report
Samar Qaed (author)
Son said Yemeni medical facilities for sick mother are inadequate, UNHCR takes case into consideration
Shage Mohamed, a 60-year-old woman from Ethiopia, sits in a wheelchair as her son Sultan pushes her forward.
It was because of her son Sultan that Shage came to Yemen. Sultan fled civil conflict in his home country of Ethiopia in the latter half of the nineties.
Shage, Sultan and his two sons have been staging regular protests in front of the Sana’a branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) because of what Sultan said is his mother’s dire need for health service—the kind of health service he can’t receive in Yemen.
Shage is overweight and paralyzed from the waist down because of a stroke that she suffered two years ago.
Shage, Sultan and his two children, have refugee cards and receive basic medical services provided by the UNHCR medical center in Sana’a.
In case of medical emergencies, the UNHCR sends patients to either Aljomhori or Al-Sabeen hospitals where operations are performed, free of charge.
But, Sultan said, his mother needs treatment abroad. In addition to her paralysis, she suffers from gallbladder stones.
“I’m not convinced with the Yemeni doctors,” Sultan said.
Sultan claims to have papers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Human Rights which call his mother’s case “urgent.” He also said that he has permission from the Ministry of Interior to travel abroad.
Sultan hopes to see an immediate response from UNHCR. He said that his mother’s case gets worse each day.
Sultan said that he quit his job to care for his mother and that his wife left him because of this.
“My mother is heavy and needs a strong man to move her,” he said.
Since leaving is job, everything has been downhill for Sultan and his family.
“I wasn’t able to pay the rent,” he said. “The landlord evicted me.”
He, his mother and his children move from place to place now, sometimes staying with friends other times sleeping on the street.
According to the statistics the UNHCR announced in May of this year, there are over 48, 000 Ethiopian, 23,000 Somali and 70,000 multi-nationalities refugees in Yemen.
Representatives from UNHCR told the Yemen Times that case of Sultan’s mother was presented to the United Nations medical committee in the UNHCR office in Yemen for consideration.
Wafa Al-Shaibani, medical advisor in the UNHCR, said that the committee has met three times to decide on the case of Shage.
The report of the committee found that Shage’s health problems were related to her stroke that she suffered years ago and other illnesses related to old age.
The UNHCR provides medicine for her on a monthly basis, Al-Shaibani said.
“Shage can undergo an operation in Yemen to remove her gallbladder stones,” Al-Shaibani said. “Her son doesn’t want that.”
Sultan wants to see his mother sent abroad for her medical treatment. Every year, the UNHCR office in Yemen sends refugees abroad—to Australia, American and European countries, for example—for similar medical treatment.
Yemen’s branch of the UNHCR is allotted 500 medical grants per year to send refugees abroad but has strict criteria when determining who may go.
In the past three years ago, only 300 refugees have met the standards of the UNHCR for treatment abroad, which sometimes includes resettlement in the country where they are treated.
Jamal Al-Joabi, Legal Protection Officer in the UNHCR, said that when deciding which refugees go abroad, they consider whether the person has been subject to torture, is elderly or could be in danger because of religious differences.
Al-Joabi said that UNHCR only acts as a mediator between refugees seeking treatment and countries which offer that treatment.
Another concern, he said, is security. Most refugees are not only seeking medical treatment, he said, but are also looking to leave Yemen.
“The majority of refugees who travel for treatment are also looking to move abroad permanently,” he said.