(Zaman Al Wasl)- The doctors and staff in al-Assad Hospital in coastal Latakia city are pursuing a policy of loot as hospital will be turned over to the regime Ministry of Defense in 2 January 2017 based on al-Assad’s decision issued in the last week of November.
Social media pages and pro-regime media circulated news of the looting. One of the hospital staff testified that staff, nurses and doctors started gathering all kinds of hospital supplies and equipment and leaving with it. Nothing remains from gauze, cotton, pressure measurement apparatuses, sterilizers, and band aids.
The employee said the amount of supplies taken is very large, as one resident student supposedly filled his car three times in one day with supplies and left the hospital without anyone objecting. The guards at the main hospital doors do not search doctors or staff members leaving the hospital.
The employee warned that the delay in transferring ownership of the hospital will lead to the theft of all its supplies and equipment including advanced equipment that was stored in the hospital warehouses, but are now being taken outside the hospital.
Services in the hospital are at a standstill as most of the staff are busy with the pillaging. No civilian cases are being admitted to the hospital, on the basis the hospital is going to become a military hospital according to the president’s orders.
On November 23, al-Assad issued a decision transferring the ownership of the al-Assad University Hospital from the Ministry of Higher Education to the Ministry of Defense for it to become a military hospital.
Latakia as all other Syrian provinces is suffering from a deficiency in the medical services provided. The closure of the hospital to civilians exacerbates the situation and exhausts people seeking treatment. Their suffering is meaningless to the regime as the main aim behind transferring the ownership of the hospital is gaining Russian favor. It is estimated the hospital will most likely be used by the Russian military forces present in Syria to offer medical services to their troops and treat their injured.
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