An independent Catholic family foundation, Raskob, has awarded Catholic Near East Welfare Association an emergency grant to assist the agency in opening two additional medical clinics serving Iraqi Christian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan. According to CNEWA’s partners on the ground, the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena and the Syriac Catholic Archbishop Boutros Moshe of Mosul, there are pressing health concerns for the 4,530 Iraqi Christian refugee families living temporarily in the cities of Dohuk and Zahko.
The Dominican Sisters will administer the clinics day-to-day, as with CNEWA’s clinic taking shape now in Erbil. The sisters are coordinating their efforts with the Chaldean and Syriac priests responsible for relief efforts in Dohuk and Zahko, respectively.
The clinics will be staffed by volunteer doctors, Christians displaced from the city of Qaraqosh, and will provide quality care for chronic ailments and medical emergencies. Health care in Iraqi Kurdistan is largely private and cost prohibitive for the refugees, who fled their homes with nothing.
The emergency grant will help set up four examination rooms; install two bathrooms; waterproof a tent to serve as a waiting room; and provide medical equipment, such as an ultrasound machine, eye pressure meter, electrocardiograph, birthing and dental chairs, and other tools and equipment.
Members of CNEWA’s team in Beirut, who are making regular visits to Iraqi Kurdistan, are monitoring the implementation of the clinics.