Aga Khan Health Services offered in Syria

Salamieh

AKHS-Syria Overview

AKDN has worked to improve health care in Syria sisince 2003.

While some initiatives have had to be suspended during the crisis, others have been inintensified.

We have been improving the quality of care and health management in 28 public primary hehealthcare facilities and the public hospital in Salamieh District since 2003.

The AKDN Health Programme introduced community-based health initiatives that had been defined as priorities by the local community, including child care and development, women’s health and non-communicable diseases.

We have worked to sustain gains in three areas: health systems strengthening (HSS), health promotion and disease prevention, and mass casualty management (MCM). Our objectives are to:

• support the public health systems to ensure the functioning of essential public health services in the crisis, the provision of good quality public health care and the sustained improvement in the health systems. AKDN complements healthcare service delivery where public primary and secondary healthcare services are unavailable;

• continue the community health programme of health promotion and disease prevention, but adapted to the current situation. This calls for focusing on building  the capacity of communities to cope with emerging health problems, participate effectively in community health initiatives and adopt healthy lifestyles for the long term; and 

• build the capacity of local communities to appropriately perform search, rescue and basic first aid, and ensure a continuum of care and adequate capacity to deal with mass casualties within the district health system, including Salamieh Hospital.

Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) supported community health centres in vulnerable communities to install solar power systems, used for lighting and to operate critical medical equipment and tests. These community health centres are the only point of access for many vulnerable communities, but long electricity outages frequently interrupted service delivery. The solar power capacity enables the health centres to continue critical services for nearly 5,000 people.

AKDN has provided technical and material assistance in the forms of essential and advanced medical equipment, renovation of health facilities and training for more than 500 health workers in different health topics to improve diagnostic and therapeutic capacity. AKDN has also added to stockpiles of equipment and supplies.

 In areas of the district that are secure but where there are access problems, AKDN has introduced mobile health services, especially for critical services such as immunisation, growth monitoring, and antenatal and postnatal care.
The AKDN Health Programme trained around 1,200 community members in different health topics. This has enabled them to disseminate health messages to families and contribute to community health activities such as home visits, awareness sessions, interactive activities and the distribution of health kits and educational materials. These programmes reached more than 30,000 families.