TAANAYEL, Lebanon: Crossing the Bekaa border
in January, a Syrian man spotted a mother cradling a newborn baby girl, who was
sick, her skin turning blue.
Having delivered with an under-qualified
midwife in Lebanon, the mother was attempting to return to Damascus, where
health care was free. In a gesture of humanity, the man took the woman to
Taanayel Hospital in the Bekaa.
Hospital manager Shady Bader recounts the
incident.
“She had not received the necessary after care
so the mother was taking her back to Damascus. But the man, luckily, brought
her here. And he paid for everything,” he says.
For expectant mothers without such generous
compatriots, however, treatment costs at the hospital are covered by local and
international NGOs.
The neonatal intensive care unit at Taanayel
Hospital has seen an increase in patients over recent months, as expectant
mothers cross into Lebanon from Syria, some going into labor prematurely, or
miscarrying in the early stages of pregnancy.
This tiny private hospital, with 15
incubators, 15 maternity beds and 10 pediatric beds, is one of the largest
dedicated maternity units in the Bekaa, and since the uprising next door has
grown increasingly violent and protracted, local and international charities
are helping to cover the costs of treatment here, with gaps sometimes filled by
philanthropic individuals.
Originally Medecins Sans Frontieres and the
Lebanese Islamic relief charity, Azhar Foundation, were covering the costs of
treatment in cash payments, Bader says.
In April the hospital signed a contract with
the International Medical Corps, which now covers 85 percent of the treatment
costs.
The remainder of costs are paid for by Azhar
and the Hariri Foundation, both of which also help patients obtain secondary
medical assistance after leaving Taanayel.
In recent months, around 30 percent of the hospital’s
some 250 patients per month are Syrian refugees, Bader says. The hospital
provides care for women and children, although a special exception was made a
couple of months ago when a man shot in Syria was transferred across the
border.
Of the 15 incubators, seven are currently
occupied, and three of those are the babies of Syrian refugees. The majority of
refugee mothers at the hospital have gone into labor early, Bader says. Some
are giving birth at around six or seven months, to babies weighing as little as
1 kilogram (the average weight for a full-term newborn is over 3 kilos). Others
have lost their babies much earlier in the pregnancy.
Environmental factors such as the mother’s
nutrition and lack of neo-natal care are possible causes, as are the undeniable
stresses of escaping from a war zone.
“Stress leads to premature births. Also, I
don’t know what sort of conditions these women are living in, or where they are
living.
“Before arriving here, they have not been
under observation from any gynecologists or midwives. And they often have no
money: these are all big problems,” explains Dr. Zahra Haidar, a pediatrician
at both the Taanayel and Chtoura hospitals in the Bekaa.
A nurse at the hospital, Saria Nasrallah,
agrees that “stress and the situation in Syria” are contributing to this higher
incidence of premature births. Some refugee women have reported bleeding while
en route to Lebanon, as the tense journey put their bodies through extra
strain.
The premature births usually require delivery
by caesarean section, says Joe Jabbour, senior health officer for the IMC in
Lebanon.
“As they haven’t been for follow ups during
their pregnancies,” he says, and due to the fact that, “once they go in to
labor the doctor here knows nothing about the baby or its conditions,” so a
natural birth would prove even riskier.
Babies born at six or seven months spend
somewhere between two weeks to more than a month in the neonatal intensive
unit, which is extremely expensive, costing $250 per night for each baby,
Jabbour adds.
In order to be eligible for treatment paid for
by the IMC, refugees must first register with the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees, which has mobile units traveling around the Bekaa.
In emergency cases, or if there is no UNHCR
unit in the area, families can be treated first and register later.
But many are hesitant to register at all,
fearing their personal information may get into the wrong hands and lead to
retribution against relatives still living in Syria.
In these situations, local Lebanese philanthropists
often come forward to cover the cost of treatment for Syrian refugees at the
hospital, says Rima Bader, in charge of hospital accounts.
One family now at the hospital tell of another
form of generosity.
After paying to have themselves smuggled
across the border just over a month ago, they arrived to the Bekaa and asked
around for cheap accommodation. A Qatari man, who owns a house in the region,
offered to let the family of four stay in the residence for as long as they
need it, in exchange for the father carrying out the maintenance and gardening
work.
Refusing to give their names, or be
photographed, the family, who are from Aleppo, brought their
one-and-a-half-year-old daughter to the hospital after she was suffering from a
high temperature and diarrhea.
Unable to afford treatment at the first
hospital they visited, they were referred to Taanayel. The baby is now on an IV
drip.
Haidar says aside from premature births, the
most common ailments among the refugee children have been gastroenteritis, and
a couple of cases of meningitis.
Except for the man who had been shot in the
leg, no other wounded patients have arrived at the hospital.
Rima, from Kunban in Damascus, is at the
hospital with her 3-year-old daughter Maram, who had a high fever and went into
shock.
She crossed at the Masnaa crossing a week ago,
with her mother, her siblings and her three children.
Her family is staying with relatives in Majdal
Anjar.
Rima was referred to the hospital after
registering with UNHCR, but says she has received no other aid. After Kunban
was bombed, the family moved elsewhere in the capital, but then, still feeling
unsafe, fled to Lebanon.
“I wish I could go back, but my husband tells
us not to.
“He wants us to be safe
here, and he says he can join us if things get worse,” Rima says.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Aug-09/183930-hospital-says-refugees-giving-birth-prematurely.ashx#axzz22xdpMYwe
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