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“Honouring Our Mothers” campaign for Palestine and Syria refugees

Tuesday, 18th February 2014

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As part of Muslim Charity’s “Honouring our Mothers” campaign, the lives of babies born to Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon are being saved through the handing over of an infant incubator to the Al-Nida hospital located in the camp near the city of Saida, Lebanon.

“Many Palestinian families fleeing the violence, starvation and threat to their lives are from the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus, Syria. Most of these families have now shifted to the Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon and many women are pregnant. We have an increase in cases of premature births and consequently an increased number of infant death. Similarly, we are struggling with the provision of medicines and providing services to these families because they cannot pay and our own resources are exhausted. Our single incubator was not enough to help in saving the lives of infants in need of assistance and so I am thankful to the donors of Muslim Charity for their generosity and remembering us in these difficult times.” Hospital Director, Al-Nida Hospital, Lebanon.

Pre-natal and maternal mortality rates are highest amongst the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, between 59% and 74% of Palestinian refugee infants die during the first month of their lives for causes related to prematurity, low birth weight and respiratory infections. In the Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp only a few hospitals and small clinics provide maternal, paediatric and other health services. Most of these hospitals are underfunded, poorly equipped and do not provide the Emergency Obstetrics Care (EmOC) services.

The Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp was overcrowded and now with the influx of Palestinian refugees from Syria, it has become a picture of woes for the inhabitants. Shabby housing conditions, contaminated water, open sewage and jerry-rigged electrical connections all contribute to sub-standard living conditions. The rotting piles of garbage in the narrow streets and smell of open drainage ditches permeates the air, making conditions ripe for the spread of disease.

Lebanon, with highly privatised medical facilities is not affordable for the Syrian refugees. Muslim Charity’s Director of Programmes, Irfan Rajpur, recently returned from a mission to Lebanon and commented, “The major issues currently facing the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon are housing, food, water and sanitation, health and security. As the refugees are settling in primarily lower socio-economic regions of Lebanon, additional burden is being placed on already overstretched resources. Gaps are appearing in refugees’ access to medical care, particularly in their access to hospital-level maternal care. I fear thousands of women are at risk without any maternal health services”.

Muslim Charity is providing maternal health assistance to the vulnerable Syrian refugee mothers and infants.

Your support is vital in order to continue honouring our mothers by restoring their dignity and saving the lives of mothers and children.

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