First GP practice has received medical equipment from Poland.

Apr 19, 2019 | Medical assistance

At the beginning of May, we started the distribution of medical equipment for GP practices in the towns of the Nineveh Plains.

It is a joint action of the Eaglewatch, the Department for Humanitarian Aid, and the local Gilgamesh Organization for Development and Relief. .

The ISIS terrorists destroyed hospital and other medical help buildings, including all their equipment.

Illustration for children placed on a shool wall warming against Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).

Merely a few months passed when the first residents returned home. The pioneers, who at all cost wanted to see their (often destroyed) houses, were sparsely showing up at the checkpoint leading to the town. For weeks there had been neither mortar shells nor rockets fired at Teleskoff. However, shelled building walls and ruins were on display everywhere around.

The residents cleaned up the streets, but the signs of ISIS activities were still visible in many places. A little GP practice with only several rooms was one of them. It was completely ruined by Daesh. Its entire equipment, starting from desks and cupboards with medicines to chairs in the waiting room were burned down or smashed. One could spot tables with first aid instructions and fragments of letters on eye test boards hidden underneath the soot on the walls. The scale of destruction was huge, even though Teleskoff was occupied by ISIS only for several days.

Not much has changed untill today. Maybe with the exception that hospitals, pharmacies and GP practices were reopened in Teleskoff, Bashiqa, Qaraqosh and in other towns.

Destroyed buildings remind about the events that took place here not a long time ago. When you start talking to the people, you discover that nothing here is as it was before 2014. The further from the city centers, the more problems their residents have. Every aspect of life needs fixing. The largest problem for small GP practices is lack of equipment. The situation in large hospitals is not that bad, but smaller practices further from city centers are struggling with huge difficulties.

Thanks to the Department of Humanitarian Help led by Minister Beata Kempa we have managed to receive equipment from the Material Reserves Agency specifically for those small, local GP practices in Qaraqosh, Bashiqa and Bartella.

The donations included beds, blankets, aprons, surgical tools and other basic equipment of every doctor’s office. These are the basics without which these practices cannot function.

The local Gilgamesh Organization, with which we have been cooperating for almost two years, oversees the equipment distribution. We have financed transport from the airport, the warehouse rent and the costs of distribution to individual practices. The clinic in Bashiqa was the first one to receive support. Others will get the equipment this year as well.

In May we managed to open several more workplaces.

We have opened a hairdresser’s salon for 27-year-old Nooh. It will allow him to provide for his three-member family, which after fleeing the city in 2014 occupied a little church hall in the town of Sarsank, not far from the Turkish border. They came back two years ago, but only now they can become independent.

We bought sewing machines and other sewing materials for Sabri, who together with husband and four children for almost a year was held captive by ISIS. It will enable her to open a tailor’s shop specializing in sewing dresses.

We have refurbished the place as well, allowing her to work in comfortable conditions. I do not want to share the details of her torment with you. If anyone wants to find out how the life of women in the hands of ISIS looked like, I recommend you to read the book “The Beekeeper of Sinjar”. I warn you, however, that it is not an easy read.

We are in the process of opening a welding shop as well, which will become a source of income for Mohammed and his family.

In the past, Mohammed specialized in the installation of gates and other steel constructions. Terrorists destroyed his house and workshop. He tried to rebuild it on his own, but it was beyond his capabilities. An unexpected help appeared on the horizon: the employees of the PG – Projekt company who collected 7,500 zlotys and helped him rebuild his workshop. The work is in progress and I hope it will be opened soon.

Author: Dawid Czyż

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