Iraq: MSF hands over activities after six years of healing wounds in Mosul

Healing the scars of war

We opened the Al-Wahda hospital in April 2018 in response to the urgent need for surgical and post-surgical care for people wounded during the war. While continuing the construction, we converted 40 newly built individual rooms, originally for patients with fractures, into isolation units for those with mild to moderate COVID-19 infections.

Back then, the capacity to meet the community’s healthcare needs in Mosul was critically low, both due to the number of people requiring care as well as major damages to the city’s main healthcare facilities, which rendered them out of service.

“During the war, we were displaced many times, our days were dark and sad. When we finally returned home after the war, nothing was working as it used to be before,” says Taha Hussein, MSF health promoter at Al-Wahda. “Nothing was spared. The healthcare sector was among the hardest hit in the city,” she says.

Soon after the hospital started receiving the first war-wounded patients, the true extent of people’s medical needs became more evident. In response, our teams decided to expand the hospital’s bed capacity and admission criteria to accommodate more patients.