Syria: Medicine as a Weapon of Persecution, Testimony No. 4

TRANSCRIPT:"The security forces shot me in the thigh.A group of men took me to a mosque.At the mosque they told meI needed to go to a hospital for treatment,but that they could not take mebecause the situation was really bad.They said the injured can be shot at the hospital.So they took me to a housewhere I stayed until the afternoon.Then they took me to the national hospital.At the hospital they told us there had been amassacre, that they already had a lot of woundedso they could not operate on me.We stayed at the hospital until midnight,and then they told us to leave for our own safety,in order not to be targeted. So we went to another hospitalwhere they put me on a drip until the morning.They gave me first aid treatment but I needed surgery. I stayed like that for twenty-five daysbefore my leg was operated on.I finally went to hospitalfor the operation twenty-five days later.I went home the day after the operation,knowing I would need a second operation toremove the external fixator and to insert a plate.After two months,I wanted to go back to the hospitalbut the situation was too tense.Nobody could go to hospital,the situation was getting worse and worse.They started to take patients from the hospitals.People gave me moneyso I could have the operation in a private clinic.Then I went to a doctor; the bones were healing but I was suffering from nerve damage.This kind of treatment is not available in Syria.I stayed like that for eight months.Relatives living abroadtold me about the MSF project in Jordan.They told me to get in touchto see if MSF could treat me."

Testimonies from injured people and doctors from across Syria were collected by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff between January 30 and February 6, 2012. MSF is not authorized to operate inside Syria at present and thus is unable to fully verify the information collected here. However, given the recurring nature, consistency, and severity of the acts described in these testimonies, MSF has decided to make them public. For security reasons, names and locations have been withheld. Read more - http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=5755&cat=press-...