Only ten beds are currently available at the maternity ward of al-Khansa teaching hospital in Mosul, the provincial capital of Ninewa, more than two years since the Islamic State (IS) group was ousted.
During the conflict, nine out of 13 public hospitals were damaged in Mosul, slashing healthcare capacity and the number of hospital beds by 70 percent.
Speaking to KirkukNow, Ibtihal al-Jiburi, director of al-Khansa Teaching Hospital, said “before the arrival of IS in 2014, the number of hospital beds in the maternity hall was 30 beds, but now the number is down to only ten.”
Earlier, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had said that “the health system in Mosul is still in ruins and struggling to cope as thousands of people continue to return to the city.”
Ibtihal al-Jiburi spoke about the unbearable situation in the maternity hall, noting that “three women have to sleep on a single bed.”
Public Health infrastructure in Mosul was devastated during 3 years of fighting between Iraqi forces and IS, which took control of a third of Iraqi territories in mid-2014.
Ibtihal Al-Jiburi called on the Iraqi ministry of health, the humanitarian organizations and the Ninewa local administration to provide support to al-Khnasa hospital and ensure the medial facility, particularly the maternity hall, is supplied with the necessary equipment.
The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights, cited 4 female patients it interviewed inside al-Khansa hospital as saying that the hospital suffers from medicine shortages.
