Mosul's wounded struggle to access the healthcare to recover from war injuries
Throughout the battle for Mosul, emergency responders, including the independent medical humanitarian organization Mèdecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have provided thousands of life-saving interventions for the freshly wounded wherever it has been possible. First-line surgery remains critical for those caught amid ongoing conflict in some western parts of the city. But another medical need is emerging in the wake of this conflict, affecting many of the hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to get on with their lives in safer areas of eastern Mosul and in displaced persons camps.
In these places, many men, women and children still suffer from months-old and partially healed trauma injuries. Civilians walk with shrapnel still embedded in their bodies, hampering their movements. Men, women and children suffer from old burns and gunshot wounds. Patients who received external fixtures to stabilize shattered bones now have metallic pins protruding from broken limbs, at risk of infection.
For them, the journey of healing from the incapacitation of war injuries toward anything resembling a normal life is still long and very uncertain. Most hospitals in Mosul have been damaged or destroyed, meaning patients struggle to access healthcare and provision of post-operative and rehabilitative care is desperately lacking. MSF is operating two projects aimed at providing these vital services, but it can only help a very small proportion of those who require assistance.
+++++++++++++++++
MSF is providing urgently needed medical assistance to residents of Mosul in eight project locations in and around the embattled city, including surgical interventions for war-wounded, maternal care, malnutrition, mental health and other medical services. In Al Hamdaniya, MSF has provided 275 patients with post-operative care, rehabilitation and psychosocial support in collaboration with Handicap International. In Al Taheel, MSF has provided more than 175 surgeries, mainly for follow-up surgical interventions and trauma-related cold cases.

MSF offers neutral and impartial medical assistance regardless of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. In order to ensure its independence, MSF does not accept funding from any government or international agency for its programs in Iraq, relying solely on private donations from the general public around the world to carry out its work.