"I spoke to him via WhatsApp. He told me that the bombing was so intense that he had stopped counting the number of strikes. Ten minutes later he was dead", an associate from TSF's principal medical partner, the Union of Syrian Medical Care and Relief Organisations (UOSSM) testified.
The account is spine-chilling and is a reflection of the stark reality that the populations in Eastern Ghouta have been facing for weeks on end. In the time it has taken us to write and send this message this morning, 25 people have already been declared dead.
Medical evacuations have become near impossible due to the intensity of the airstrikes and coordination is key to ensuring that the injured are taken care of in the most efficient manner possible. In order to assist medical staff in the coordination of their operations, Télécoms Sans Frontières sent a team to Syria's border regions to provide satellite lines to the medical teams that risk their lives to assist the war-wounded.
Satellite lines have been provided to the UOSSM to galvanise the management between the following services:
Mobile clinic
Ambulances
Needs assessments
Security coordination
The ten mobile clinics concerned are all in contact with the central coordination centre. It is vital for the security of the paramedics working in the disaster zones to have a permanent link with the Mobile Clinic Coordinator and Security Coordinator at all times and share situational information, report incidents and manage risk.
TSF assisted the UOSSM workers in programming key message templates so as to save time in the sending of emergency alerts in an environment where time is of the essence.
March 2018 marks the start of Télécoms Sans Frontières' 7th year of support to the relief efforts in Syria. To date, TSF has connected a total of 52 hospitals, medical warehouses, evacuation centres, medical coordination centres and pharmacies across north-western Syria. In 2017 alone, 808,236 consultations took place in TSF-connected health facilities to the benefit of 618,042 patients.
