Since August last year, professionals from the Sant Joan de Déu Mother and Child Hospital and the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona have been providing health care to the refugees living on two Greek islands, Kos y Chios, in a total of 3 refugee camps.

These professionals are working in conjunction with one of the most firmly established NGOs in that territory – the Woman and Health Alliance (WAHA) - and are meeting the basic health care needs of more than 12,000 people, most of them children. This project is being implemented in collaboration with the Department of Health, Institutional Affairs and Relations, and Transparency, through the Catalonia Development Cooperation Agency.

Cooperation in the refugee camps is being provided in consecutive 4-week shifts, by the Sant Joan de Déu Mother and Child Hospital which is seconding 12 professionals, and by a variety of specialists of the Hospital Clínic to evaluate and take stock of the situation. These professionals are emergency care and ICU physicians and nurses, surgeons, and inpatient care professionals, psychiatrists, midwives, and above all paediatricians and gynaecologists and staff nurses.

These Sant Joan de Déu professionals are providing preventive hygiene and health care to stave off infections and epidemics, looking after children with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease and common childhood diseases such as chicken pox. They also evaluate the nutritional status of the people and administer vaccinations and dental health care. Women are cared for during pregnancy and also in other fields, such as treatment for genitourinary infections and sexually transmitted diseases. They are trying to assist all the people needing psychological help to cope with their dramatic ordeal.

According to the UNHCR, there are now 44 refugee camps in Greece in 3 different geographical areas: Athens, Northern Thessalonica and the islands. This makes an estimated population of over 60,000 people of whom 38% are children. Half of them come from Syria, and about 25 percent from Afghanistan, as well as other refugees from countries such as Iraq.

Civil society can help us to send health care personnel to the refugee camps by making a donation to this bank account: SOS Refugiados ES38 2100 5000 5302 0015 1527