Mobile medical unit – delivering a practical response to the needs of Syrian refugees in Lebanon

03/07/2018

The Mobile Medical Unit in Lebanon set up in response to the urgent need to provide access to healthcare services for Syrian refugees on Lebanese territory has been dispensing care and medicines in refugee camps since July 2016. We look back on its frontline operations in 2017.

Lebanon is host to the second-largest number of Syrian refugees, after Turkey*. The Foundation has been actively involved here since 2002, supporting the medical services provided to some of the country’s poorest people by the Order of Malta in Lebanon. The charity responded to the mass influx of Syrian refugee families and the associated health emergency by setting up a Mobile Medical Unit, which has been hard at work providing greater access to healthcare in the Bekaa Valley since July 2016.

Charles-Henri d’Aragon, Ambassador of the Order of Malta in Lebanon: “Refugee families are living under challenging and unstable conditions where access to healthcare is very much the exception.” The Mobile Medical Unit project – see video – makes it possible to offer free medical examinations and treatments to these displaced families, and helps them to stay healthy. Patients are followed up and referred to the medical centre, where necessary. “There’s currently no other institution in Lebanon that offers this kind of service whether to Syrians or Lebanese”, says Doctor Jamal Ismail, the medical director of the MMU.

This former 30-seater bus has been completely refitted with two consulting and treatment rooms, as well as a small pharmacy, and travels from village to village to give patients access to high-quality care. Last year, the mobile medical unit covered 10 113 km, and its staff provided 10750 medical consultations. 80% of patients were refugees, around half of whom were aged under 11.

Fondation Pierre Fabre will strengthen its presence in Lebanon this year with the opening of a Volontaire de Solidarité Internationale unit to monitor and develop the programmes it supports.

*Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

See the report about the MMU from February 2017: