Yemen docs despair as babies starve in ‘orphaned province’

Losing fight against famine

DALEH, Yemen, Sept 30, (Agencies): At Nasr Hospital’s emergency room in the Yemeni city of Daleh, a little boy struggles to breathe. He is too tired, or too hungry, to cry.

Born with a degenerative neurological disease, his muscles have atrophied to nothing, his tiny joints visible through his pale skin, his stomach distended.

The child’s body cannot retain even water, so nurses have resorted to putting him in diapers.

And doctors say there is nothing they can do.

The boy is one of an estimated five million Yemeni children who may not see their next birthday in a war the UN children’s fund has described as a “living hell” for minors.

The UN has warned that international aid agencies are losing the fight against famine in Yemen, where 3.5 million people may soon be added to the eight million Yemenis already facing starvation — more than half of them children.

Mahmud Ali Hassan, director of Nasr Hospital, does not mince words. Life for his patients, he says, is “pure misery”.

“We need help. We need real help.”

South of rebel-held Sanaa and north of the government bastion of Aden, Daleh is, in the words of its residents, a forgotten city.

The war between Yemen’s government, backed by a Saudi-led regional military coalition, and Huthi rebels linked to Iran has left an estimated 10,000 dead since 2015 and triggered what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Hunger

Another 2,200 have died of cholera, according to the World Health Organization, nearly one-third of them under the age of five.

In government-held Daleh, medics at Nasr Hospital are desperately looking for ways to treat patients – most of whom have not yet learned to read, tie their shoelaces or even walk – as supplies dwindle and hunger spreads.

A sign outside Nasr Hospital reads “funded by the World Health Organization”. The hospital is a lifeline for three provinces with a combined population of more than 1.5 million.

“We take cases from Daleh as well as Ibb and Lahaj,” said Hassan.

“Most cases we receive are malnourished children. We get three to four cases a day. The ward is always full. It’s full right now.”

In a lime green onesie, another malnourished baby wails as doctors hook him up to a nasal cannula — the tube used to deliver oxygen to patients in respiratory distress.

His diaper is multiple sizes too big.

“We are in desperate need of medical supplies,” Hassan told AFP.

“We need orthopaedic equipment, and everyone says they’re trying — the government coalition and other sides — and yet we haven’t gotten supplies yet.”

Dr. Ayman Shayef, head of the emergency room at Nasr, says three to four children die under his watch every week of preventable causes, mainly linked to neo-natal care.

“We have serious issues with the total absence of pre-natal care and the inability to open an obstetrics department,” Shayef said.

“We’ve also seen a rapid rise in malnutrition cases.

“Daleh is an orphaned province. We need help. We need support for pre-natal care, malnutrition “

GENEVA:

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders warned Tuesday over unprecedented levels of child mortality in southern Niger during the past month, with 10 children dying per day.

Most deaths are linked to surging cases of malaria or malnutrition that have forced the intensive paediatric care unit in the city of Magaria to fill up, said the charity, which is known by its French acronym, MSF.

“We have never seen anything like this before and we fear it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dorian Job, the Geneva-based head of MSF’s Niger programme, said in a statement.

LONDON:

Also:

Life expectancy has fallen in Scotland and Wales and has stopped improving for the first time since 1982 in Britain as a whole, according to official data released on Tuesday.

Life expectancy for both men and women fell by 0.1 years in Scotland and Wales and by the same amount for men in Northern Ireland, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Overall life expectancy for girls born between 2015 and 2017 was 82.9 years – no change on the previous figure for 2014-2016.

The figure for baby boys was also unchanged at 79.2 years.

Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, an elderly charity, called the figures “concerning”.

“These figures starkly highlight the need for health and care services to adapt to our ageing population,” she said.