Sundhedssystemet i Syrien smuldrer

He only barely escaped death, but his was a threat of a different kind.

The nearly two-year conflict in Syria has taken tens of thousands of lives, destroyed entire neighbourhoods and sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing. But more quietly, it has also eaten away at the country’s healthcare system.

Pharmaceutical factories, which used to produce more than 90 percent of the country’s drug needs, are down to one third of their former production, according to Elizabeth Hoff, the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Syria.

Many have been destroyed or damaged in the fighting – sometimes directly targeted by the opposition. The northern city of Aleppo, one of the worst affected by the conflict, was home to most of the factories. Other factories are struggling to import raw materials due to sanctions imposed on Syria by Western countries. Insecure routes have also affected supply lines.

On the black market, Hanani was able to find, but just barely, an alternative to the cancer serum, smuggled in from Lebanon. The dose costs him 5,000 Syrian pounds (US$70) a month, half the monthly salary of his son, the family’s sole breadwinner.

“Without it, the pain is extreme, I don’t sleep, and eventually, I would die,” Hanani told IRIN, a small cloth tied around his neck to cover the hole in his throat – a legacy of another bout of cancer he overcame four years ago. His dirty fingernails hold a machine against his throat to help him speak. “My life is in God’s hands,” he said with a smile, exposing missing teeth.

The shortage of medicines is just one part of an exploding healthcare crisis in Syria, as hospitals run out of space and supplies, health workers struggle to get to work, patients lose access to health facilities, and medicines shoot up in price.

Shortages in pharmacies