Jordanian hospitals manage care for wounded Syrians
Almost every hospital in Jordan has a ward where Syrians can receive free health care after being severely wounded in Syria.
AMMAN — At Al-Jazeera Hospital in Amman, Fatima, 10, cried when she talked about what happened to her right eye, which is covered in bandages. Tears mixed with blood ran down her cheeks and onto her pillow.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. You are so beautiful. Look at your new nail polish. Isn’t it lovely?” the nurse said. Fatima wiped away her tears, while the nurse continued whispering words of comfort in her ear.
Fatima was injured in a village in Daraa province, in Syria, a two-hour drive from Amman, during a bomb attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. When Fatima’s mother desperately looked for her children, she found them all safe and unharmed, except for Fatima. The right side of Fatima’s face was severely injured, as well as her right arm. She drove her daughter to the nearest field hospital near the Jordanian border, where the doctors concluded that Fatima’s eye could not be saved.
“So they took us to Amman to take care of Fatima’s injuries. I left my four other children with my husband in Syria,” Fatima’s mother told Al-Monitor. “She will need plastic surgery, but we don’t know yet if that will happen because the hospital probably cannot afford it,” she added.
