Syria funding crisis leaves vital Idlib hospital on brink of closure
Al Jazeera
Medical services at Bab al-Hawa hospital in northwest Syria are about to stop, and patients’ options are slim.
Idlib, Syria – Ayman al-Khayal, 43, sat with his family as he waited for his latest dialysis session at Bab al-Hawa Hospital in the north of Syria’s Idlib province.
He was looking forward to having a few hours of rest as the treatment proceeded, doing the job of removing toxins from his body that his kidneys can no longer do.
Al-Khayal has been receiving free dialysis three times a week for the last nine years at Bab al-Hawa Hospital, located near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey.
But that vital service may soon no longer be available for him or the facility’s other 32,000 monthly patients, as the hospital faces an existential funding crisis.
Over the last year, Idlib’s medical services have been severely underfunded and now Bab al-Hawa Hospital is at risk of closing by the end of September, threatening the healthcare provided to hundreds of thousands of patients.
