The exodus of white blouses abroad, a consequence of the economic slump that rages in the country, and the difficulty in recruiting new graduates threaten certain disappearance specialties.
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In intervals in recent months, health players in government Syria have warned against the dilapidation of the medical sector: between 30 % and 60 % of white blouses would have left the country since the start of the conflict, in 2011, according to estimates, and the exodus continues. Taking the alarm sound, in May, the head of the union of doctors around Damascus, Khaled Moussa, said that specialties were threatened with disappearance, such as anesthesia. Practitioners in oncology, vascular surgery or neurology have also become scarce.
A shortage that risks increasing in the regime controlled by the regime: because of the deterioration of living conditions linked to the serious economic crisis, doctors continue to leave, even towards Yemen at war, according to Khaled Moussa. And students will continue their studies abroad, either to acquire better specialization, or to flee the compulsory military service.
“Everyone complains in Syria of the lack of specialists,” reports Mariam (she only gave her first name), a Syrian refugee in Lebanon who suffers from heart problems and recently went to her native country To undergo surgery, less expensive than in Beirut. “The deterioration is general,” she resumes. Hospitals lack equipment, they have become dirty. My loved ones who stayed on the spot are used to it, but for me it was a shock. It is also difficult to get themselves A treatment: the prices of drugs have soared. It is as if the situation should never arrange in Syria. “
big leap back
In Lebanon as in Syria, whose economic disasters are intimately linked, health has become a headache for the most vulnerable, but Syria remains less expensive. Despite the lack of doctors, refugees in Lebanon cross the border, most often clandestine in order to avoid repression when returning to the country of Cedar. According to Doctor F., a Syrian surgeon converted into research and also exiled to Lebanon, the care sought in particular concerns “deliveries, the treatment of asthma or heart disease”.
According to this expert, staff shortages vary according to the region. “The departures of doctors were more numerous in the cities which were targeted militarily by the regime, such as Aleppo [taken over at the end of 2016 by the pro-Assad forces] and Homs [of which several districts had joined the rebellion], in comparison with those which have been preserved, like Damascus or Lattaquié. But the exodus of Syrian doctors over the years – who left for Europe, the Gulf countries, Turkey – has a general impact on the quality of studies in the four faculties of Medicine: The level has dropped, and practical training is made more difficult for young graduates. “To this are added, as a factor of degradation of the health system, Western sanctions, which, by collateral effect, make it almost impossible Maintenance and import of medical equipment.
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