As conflict escalates, MSF provides lifesaving care in Mokha, Yemen

Large numbers of people have fled the city, including health care workers. With many health facilities no longer functioning, MSF teams are helping to keep essential services running at the General Hospital. We are providing lifesaving maternity and pediatric care — a lifeline for women and children in an area where access to this care is already a daily challenge — as well as treatment for cholera and a range of other medical needs. We also support Ministry of Health staff working at the hospital. 

Outside of Mokha, our teams also provide lifesaving maternal and pediatric care in Mafraq, to the east, and Khawkhah to the north, as well as funding, training, and medical equipment and supplies.

For this work to continue, the medical and humanitarian mission must be respected. People must be able to safely access the care they need.

Here, Lou Cormack, MSF’s country coordinator in Yemen, describes the situation:

"The rapid evolution of the situation this week, including the swift advance of Ansar Allah forces and their control of most of the western coast, has had a major impact on both medical activities and the needs of the community in recent days.

Just a few days ago, our teams in Mokha were preparing to reopen our former field hospital to treat patients — including trauma stabilization — in response to the fighting taking place east of Mafraq and the gradual arrival of displaced people in Mokha.

We had already started providing water to displaced people arriving in the city, as well as finalizing the setup of cholera isolation and treatment units in Khawkhah and Mokha. We were also increasing our ambulance fleet to refer critical patients to Aden, as hospitals there were at capacity.

The rapid advance of Ansar Allah forces has fundamentally changed the situation. Within hours, the hospitals providing trauma services on the western coast were evacuated, while large numbers of people fled Mokha toward the south and Aden, including health care workers from the city’s hospitals. The General Hospital in Mokha was no exception.

Our team remains in Mokha, but we had to scale back and reorganize our activities, and focus on one immediate priority: doing everything possible to keep essential medical services running at the General Hospital.

So far, thanks to the commitment of Yemeni doctors, gynecologists, nurses, and other health care workers, we have been able to maintain a minimum level of essential care, including deliveries, emergency care, and intensive care. As of today, around 30 health care workers remain present at the hospital. This may not seem like many, but their work is saving lives.

When the city was taken, dozens of patients were still hospitalized in the maternity and pediatric wards. It was essential to maintain their care while continuing to receive patients requiring urgent treatment. On that day, hospital teams cared for two patients who arrived in the pediatric and maternity emergency departments, performed two emergency cesarean sections, and continued caring for seven patients in intensive care and 10 babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. This is in addition to dozens of other patients and babies in the regular wards.

The situation remains extremely challenging. As of September 11, almost all other health care facilities in the city have stopped functioning, largely because their staff has left. There is currently no possibility of referring patients, either within the city or to Aden.

The medical needs were already enormous before the latest escalation. They are even greater now.

We are looking for ways to reinforce our team in Mokha, but this is not straightforward. The situation remains highly stressful for both the community and our teams. There were further bombardments overnight, and there is still considerable uncertainty about what may happen in the coming hours and days.

For us to continue providing care, our medical and humanitarian mission must be respected. Medical facilities, vehicles, and staff must be protected so that people can safely access the care they need. This is essential to allow patients in critical condition to be referred safely when the treatment they need is not available locally. Any threat to the medical mission puts the provision of essential health care at risk and may jeopardize our ability to continue working in Mokha. Without these basic guarantees, we simply cannot do our job: treating people and saving lives.

We do not know what will happen next. What we do know is that medical needs are enormous and go far beyond trauma care. We will continue to do our utmost to support the people and maintain access to essential health care for as long as we can."