Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has put on hold the admission of all patients to Al Sadaqah hospital in Aden following the kidnapping and killing of a patient.
On the morning of 2 April 2019, a group of armed men threatened guards and medical staff at MSF’s emergency trauma hospital in Aden before entering the building and kidnapping a patient who had been admitted the previous day and was due to undergo surgery. Later the same day, the patient was found dead on a street in the city’s Al Mansoura district.
This incident follows a number of threats and security incidents, involving both patients and staff, which have occurred since the start of the year at MSF’s hospital in Aden. It comes at a time when the hospital is particularly busy as a result of escalating violence in Aden.
“Following this incident, we have no choice but to suspend the admission of patients until further notice,” says Caroline Seguin, MSF’s programme manager for Yemen. “Over recent weeks, the hospital has been functioning at full capacity, particularly the emergency room and intensive care unit, following an escalation of violence in the city.”
“This suspension comes at a critical time for patients and their families from Aden, as well as patients from Hodeidah and Taiz governorates, from where we receive war-wounded in need of urgent surgical care on a daily basis,” says Seguin. “We are extremely worried by the deteriorating security situation inside Aden and its consequences for our medical activities, as incidents like these endanger the lives of both patients and staff.”
MSF teams have been working in Al Sadaqah hospital in Aden since 2012. Since then, they have provided more than 30,000 emergency consultations to patients coming from various regions affected by the fighting, including Abyan, Taiz and Hodeidah governorates.
During the battle for Aden in 2015, MSF’s hospital was one of a very few surgical facilities still functioning inside the city. Between March and August 2015, MSF teams treated more than 2,800 war-wounded at the hospital. During this time, MSF teams also ran an advanced emergency post and surgical mobile clinics in the city in order to stabilise the war-wounded and improve their chances of survival.
In 2018, MSF increased the capacity of Al Sadaqah hospital to 104 beds to respond to an influx of war-wounded following the Hodeidah offensive. During 2018, MSF teams provided more than 6,000 emergency consultations and performed 5,400 surgeries at Al Sadaqah hospital, 90 per cent of them violence-related.
In Yemen, MSF teams work in 12 hospitals and provide support to more than 20 health facilities located in 11 governorates: Abyan, Aden, Amran, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ibb, Lahj, Saada, Sanaa, Shabwah and Taiz.
