During the past few months, private hospitals in Hama witnessed an organized campaign by the Syrian regime forces which went on killing and torturing civilians and even pursuing them to the places where they receive treatment and withholding treatment from them. Hospitals receiving the wounded in Hama were attacked many times as shown by the following examples obtained by activists from the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

 

This video shows the effects of shelling on the façade of Al Bader hospital (which is a private hospital in the northern part of Hama in Aleppo Road neighborhood).

 

Premature babies are dying in the incubators of Al Assad medical compound due to power cuts and the inability to use generators after fuel supplies to the hospital were cut.  Al Assad medical compound is a public hospital in the north eastern part of Hama in Al Hader neighborhood; it specialized in treating babies and pregnant women.  The Syrian regime forces have occupied the rooftop of this hospital and used it as a vantage point to kill and terrorize civilians.  The hospital is one of the most important centers for the regime forces in this area.

 

A video showing snipers monitoring from their strategic vantage point on the occupied Al-Assad hospital rooftop.

 

Field hospitals set up by residents, and with the help of doctors, to treat the injured away from regime forces are witnessing massive shortages in materials, sterilization and medical practice.  Doctors and nurses working in such hospitals are subject to arrest and torture.  The most critical shortages in such hospitals are blood transfusion sacks which are imported and sold in Syria exclusively by the Ministry of Defence through state-run blood bank branches which are formally affiliated with the Ministry of Defence, in addition to the platelet separator only available at such blood bank branches. Many cases of deaths result from injury and the inability to provide the patient with the needed blood. Activists in the Syrian revolution are currently working to get such sacks into the country through illegal ways to meet the needs of field hospitals.

 

Videos Courtesy of:

Syrian Network for Human Rights – Special Report Hospitals in Hama – 29 May 2012