Hays..Doctors who worked under Houthi bombardment tell their experience
English - Tuesday 23 November 2021 الساعة 02:51 pm
Hayes, NewsYemen, special:
In Hays Rural Hospital, south of Hodeidah, doctors struggled for years under the continuous Houthi bombardment to save hundreds of lives before they breathed a sigh of relief by returning to safety thanks to the joint forces.
The hospital, which is a single health facility, is one of the most destroyed government facilities in the city of Hais, which has been under a Houthi siege since late 2018, when it was a corridor for commercial convoys in the past.
The hospital is also one of more than 5 hospitals in the south of Hodeidah governorate that is vulnerable to the Iranian-backed Houthi militia’s projectiles and missiles, which repeatedly put it out of readiness, in a behavior that the rebels have consistently practiced in most of the liberated cities.
The deputy director of the hospital, Dr. Abdul-Jabbar Al-Shamiri, told NewsYemen that "the most difficult times were the ones during which we were treating an injured person who needed to stop the bleeding quickly, at a time when the explosions of missiles fired by the Houthi militia were heard."
He adds, describing the horror that the medical team was constantly experiencing as a result of Houthi shelling, "I must admit that working in the shadow of the worry of a shell falling takes your mind and sometimes makes you think that you are about to die."
We were in constant terror
The most terrifying moment for Doctor Al-Shamiri was when a mortar shell penetrated the examination room, while in a separate incident, a shell penetrated the scout section.
"We lost two of our friends, they fell while carrying out their humanitarian mission," says Al-Shamiri, continuing his speech, "the pharmacist Ahmed Shawei died, as did the assistant doctor, Khaled Al-Zarnuqi, because of two Houthi mortar shells."
Also, "the Houthi crimes caused the doctor's assistant, Musab Wasel, to be permanently disabled while he was performing his sacred duty."
The death incidents resulting from the Houthi attacks made the medical team live in constant anxiety, according to Dr. Al-Shamiri, who says, when we forget those tragic accidents while we work, we are reminded of the scars of shells and machine-gun bullets that are still visible on the hospital walls.
He says, we lived in a state of constant fear when we went to the hospital, we were afraid of snipers' bullets, and when we worked we were afraid of the mortar shells fired by the militias on the city.
A single facility in the firing line
Hays Hospital is currently receiving patients from all rural areas surrounding the city, including areas under the control of the terrorist Houthi militia.
The rehabilitation of the surgical department, which was one of the aspects of the support provided by the Emirates Red Crescent to the hospital, contributed to allowing the medical team to perform surgical operations for the victims of the Houthi bombing.
In view of the emergence of many cases of malnutrition, the only government hospital expanded its medical services, as it worked on preparing the stable section for children suffering from malnutrition, which is one of the most important sections due to the increase in the number of infected cases.
Amal Bajash, a medical assistant, indicated that the department receives approximately 15 cases of malnourished children per month, some of whom come from remote areas that are still under the control of militias.
Among the cases received by the department, a child weighing about 4 kilograms, is due, according to Amal, to the lack of special centers to treat such cases in the remote rural areas of Hodeidah, which are still under the control of the Iranian-backed militias.
Contribute to rehabilitation
Years ago, the city's need to rehabilitate this facility was increasing, with civilian casualties almost daily as a result of the continuous Houthi bombing, and the hospital administration was in dire need of rehabilitation, in order to treat the victims of Houthi bombing.
The director of the health office in the Hays district, Dr. Muhammad Talib Hamna, told NewsYemen that the Houthi shelling was brutal, which caused the destruction of several sections of the Hays Rural Hospital, and the rubble and traces of the missiles covered most of the sections.
We only found the UAE Red Crescent to restore what had been destroyed by the Houthi criminal shells, and provided it with the medical devices and medicines that the hospital desperately needed.
City back to safety
With the liberation of rural areas, the city of Hays returned to the state of safety that its residents lived in seven years ago, as the joint forces secured the areas that were a launching point for the Houthi militia’s missiles, making the city’s residents sleep safely for their nights.
Ali Jabour said in a Facebook post a few days ago, the people of Hess will sleep safely after the Houthi evil has been removed from them, and this is the advantage of the joint forces that secure their lives for people from the criminal gang of Iran.
