We have opened semi-fixed clinics on four Greek islands facing the Turkish coast from where most people depart for Europe: in Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Kos. The clinics are hosted in tents and pre-fab buildings. We have set up a network of mobile clinics, in collaboration with local and national authorities, the Greek Medical Association, and again the UNHCR.
Our missions on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Kos are now well organised and settled. And WAHA International is now getting ready to help refugees in a more efficient way in this coming cold season.
In order to improve our response, we have set up an emergency unit in Skalla, on the island of Lesbos. It is the first emergency unit opened on these Greek islands. We have been able to open the unit thanks to the help of the Association of Greek Doctors and of the Ministry of Health, in November. This even enables us to treat Greek patients, on top of refugee patients, when necessary. It has become the main health centre to treat hypothermia and emergencies, on the shores before their transfer to the hospital, then to bring stabilisation to the most critical patients.
Secondly, late November, we have been able to put into place a few rescue boats: one in Chios on November the 30th and one in Lesbos early December. In Lesbos, a 22 meter-long boat will also be brought soon in December to organise rescue missions and to act as a mobile clinic.
In Lesbos, in coordination with the Greek coast guards, we are now able to help bring safely the refugees from the see to the shores. If necessary, the injured or ill ones are then taken to the emergency unit, by the coast guards and rescue teams. For the most serious cases of treatment, the ambulances can then take the patients from the emergency unit to the island of Lesbos' main hospital, in the capital Mytilene.
In addition, we have also set up mobile clinics at the border with Macedonia and in Athens, to help the asylum seekers pursuing their journey West.
What we now need is to put into place more ambulances, which we hope to be able to do from mid-December.
Description of our missions in Greece as a response to the refugee crisis
WAHA arrived in Lesbos at the beginning of September and assessed the services provided to the refugees by NGOs and aid agencies. We noticed that aid was concentrated in the Southern part of the island and than no buses were in place to transport them from the Northern coast where they were arriving to the camps and registration offices in the South of the island. Refugees had therefore to walk, sometimes for more than two days, from their point of arrival towards the Kara Tepe and Moria camps.
WAHA decided accordingly to first provide aid assistance and medical care to the refugees from their arrival on the Northern Coast, where no aid organisation was present, and to do it through mobiles clinics.
We received a great help from the Mayor of Lesbos, the Greek Ministry of Health, the UNHCR and different groups of volunteers.
By the end of September, the coordination has already improved greatly and two transit camps are implemented in the North of the island: Oxy camp and Skalla camps.
On the island of Samos, WAHA then opened a fixed health clinic in the port of Vathi, main transit point on the island to bring medical assistance and provide basic items for refugees arriving by night (blankets, hot beverage, water, food, socks, etc.). We also opened a playground space for children in front of the clinic in order to give the youngest people a place where to spend time when their health is not endangered anymore.
On the island of Chios, we opened a mobile clinic late October, to face the sudden increase of arrivals. More than 70, 000 people arrived in Chios from January 2015 to the end of October - 20, 000 in October only. WAHA now has two medical team in Chios, one working in the clinic and the other with a rescue boat, recently brought on the shores.
General context
Since the beginning of 2015, more than 738,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to try to reach a safe heaven in Europe. The vast majority of them are facing incredible challenges because they are running away from war, violence, or persecutions in their own country.
In response, WAHA is providing medical services to the refugees and notably to women and children, along key points in the main routes towards Western Europe and firstly in Greece. We are present from Izmir in Turkey, from where most of the refugees depart, in the Greek Islands and in the Balkan countries of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
Since the beginning of 2015, Greece has seen an ever-increasing number of arrivals from mainly Syria (64% of them according to the UNHCR), Iraq, and Afghanistan but also from Asia and Africa. Arrivals have come to more than 580, 000 people in October 2015 only.
The UnNovelist
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