UAE's contribution to Yemen's health sector has been significant: ERC report

The UAE supported 200 humanitarian cases and 300 people wounded by the Houthi militias.

The UAE's contribution to Yemen's health sector, since the beginning of the year, has been significant and tangible, the Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, said in its latest report, highlighting health projects, programmes and initiatives launched during the 'Year of Tolerance'.
The contribution included the restoration of hospitals and health centres, the launch of programmes to combat diseases and epidemics, training medical personnel and covering the cost of treating patients outside Yemen, ERC's mid-year report said.
The 'Year of Tolerance' began with the arrival of a shipment of medicines weighing 25 tonnes at Aden Port, which were distributed to health centres on the Red Sea coast, as well as the launch of the Economy and Political Science College Medical Clinic.
The UAE has restored, since the beginning of 2019, 23 hospitals and health centres in Yemen's liberated governorates, including six hospitals in Taiz and Hadramaut, 11 health centres in the Red Sea Coast and Hadramaut, two specialist units in Aden and Socotra, and four clinics on the Red Sea Coast and Aden.
In terms of health care operations, the UAE provided necessary medicinal supplies and medical equipment, including nine containers carrying essential medicines delivered to the Yemeni Ministry of Public Health and Population.
The report said that these humanitarian efforts are a realisation of the UAE's message and humanitarian stance towards the Yemeni people, and have helped restore Yemen's medical sector, which faced systematic destruction by the Iranian-backed Houthi militias.
The UAE supported 200 humanitarian cases and 300 people wounded by the Houthi militias, and donated nine containers of medicines to the Yemeni Ministry of Health, which eased the suffering of thousands of Yemenis.
On the Red Sea coast, the UAE has launched seven medical centres, including the Al Matina Centre in Al Tahita and a health centre in Al Shujaira.
The UAE has also provided medicines and medical supplies to ten medical centres, and paid the salaries of medical personnel. In Shabwa, the UAE also inaugurated a mobile clinic to combat dengue fever, accompanied by a preventive spray campaign in Merkhah As Sufla.
In Socotra, the emergency and operations wards of the Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Hospital have been launched.
UAE bore treatment expenses of hundreds of injured Yemenis in UAE, Egypt, Sudan, India and Jordan.
During the first half of the year, the UAE sent three groups of Yemeni patients, including critical cases, for treatment outside Yemen at its own expense. 62 patients traveled to India in March for treatment, then followed by other 24 patients in June. A third group of patients was also airlifted to Egypt for medical care under a health cooperation protocol.
So far, the number of Yemeni patients who received treatment abroad, have reached 11,000.
The report added that UAE cooperated with the World Health Organisation, WHO, in the first quarter of the year, providing emergency reproductive health services to some two million Yemeni women. The ERC also coordinated with the UN health body to reopen 25 health care facilities for internally displaced persons, helping some 50,000 individuals.

• UAE