In Mosul, mobile clinics deliver medical care
mosul — Men, women and children stand in separate lines in the scorching sun baking west Mosul’s Baghdad Square for a turn in one of the two white mobile clinics.
For these Iraqis, displaced by fierce fighting as government forces close in on the Old City where Daesh group militants are still entrenched, free medical care is a godsend.
Iraqi forces have retaken several neighbourhoods in west Mosul, imposing a ban on driving in the areas they recapture amid fears of possible car bomb attacks by the militants.
The ban means many Iraqis have to walk miles to reach a hospital and see a doctor.
Medics from the Dary Humanitarian Organisation, backed by funds from the World Health Organisation and Kuwait, have stepped in to help deliver medical care in west Mosul. In the Mosul area, Dary has a clinic at Hammam Al Alil, a half-hour drive south of the frontline and is now providing medical assistance to those who cannot reach the health centre from six mobile clinics.
“One of the mobile clinics is for women only, run by a female doctor and equipped with ultrasound machines for pregnant women,” said Ihab Amer, a Dary staff member.
Ten Iraqi doctors work out of the mobile clinics and are assisted by 10 nurses, with dedicated drivers to take the converted vans around recently liberated neighbourhoods.
“We work from 8 am until 2 pm. The mobile clinics drive to the areas that have been liberated and those that have taken in people displaced by the fighting,” said Amer. —