Health Minister: Death toll from earthquake rises to 1,347, hospitals working at maximum capacity to provide services to affected people

Minister of Health Hassan Al-Ghabbash on Thursday revealed that the death toll from the earthquake has risen to 1,347 and the injuries to 2,295, pointing out that the hospitals and health centers are working at maximum capacity around the clock to provide medical services to people affected by the earthquake.

In a news conference, Al-Ghabbash urged the United Nations and other international organizations to assist Syria in facing this humanitarian disaster, particularly through proving necessary medical equipment and medicine.

He stressed that the suffering of the Syrian medical sector was not caused by the earthquake, but by the Western sanctions that have been imposed on Syria for the past 12 years and that impeded the work of the health sector and prevented it from possessing elements of development and treatment.

“Western sanctions do not value the lives of citizens, whether they are threatened by sanctions, natural disasters or epidemics,” Al-Ghabbash said, calling on international humanitarian players to help Syria face this disaster, particularly through securing medical equipment and medicine.

He explained that the shortage in the health sector due to the western unilateral coercive measures is being compensated through unifying the efforts of all the government institutions, the public sector institutions, the vocational unions, non-government organizations and the civil society, clarifying that the ministry has received hundreds of contacts and applications from physicians and specialists inside and outside Syria demanding participation in the country’s humanitarian response to this catastrophe.

Hamda Mustafa