Russia’s multipurpose hospital unit started operating in Syria’s Aleppo to assist the victims of the devastating quakes that rocked the country and neighboring Turkey in early February, the Russian Health Ministry said.
“A multi-professional team of doctors from the Federal Center for Disaster Medicine of the Russian Ministry of Health has arrived in Aleppo, Syria, to help the victims of the earthquake. The Russian specialists have set up a multipurpose field hospital and have already begun receiving patients,” the statement read, according to Sputnik.
Around 30 professionals, including surgeons and traumatologists, physicians and pediatricians, neurologists and sonographers as well as nursing staff are providing care in over 10 medical fields.
“Russia and Syria have been traditionally cooperating in many areas. I am confident that this kind of interaction will continue and expand,” Alexey Kuznetsov, assistant to the Russian health minister, said.
On February 6, two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 hit the south-eastern regions of Turkey with an interval of nine hours. The underground shocks were felt in 11 Turkish provinces and neighboring states, with Syria affected the most. According to the latest data, 47,932 people were killed by the earthquakes in Turkey alone, with thousands more in Syria.
In 2016, Vladimir Putin instructed the Defence Ministry and the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief to set up field hospitals in Syria with a view to providing medical assistance to the residents of Aleppo and nearby territories. This task is to be implemented within the shortest possible timeframe as per the decision of the President.
Specifically, the Defence Ministry will send a special medical detachment along with a multi-purpose field hospital with 100 places and a special paediatric unit. The hospital will have a capacity to provide outpatient medical services to 420 people a day.
The Emergencies Ministry will transport a field hospital with 50 places, which will provide inpatient medical services, and will have a capacity to provide outpatient medical services to 200 people a day.
