Five years of armed conflict and severe economic decline in Yemen have turned a poor country into a humanitarian catastrophe. The health system is paralysed. Hospitals and clinics have been bombed and mortared. Shortages of essential drugs, vaccines and medical equipment are widespread. In most governments, health facilities, staff hasn’t been paid regularly in years. Beyond a cholera outbreak that peaked in 2018 and has killed thousands of Yemenis, vaccine preventable disease likes measles and like diphtheria that was virtually eliminated in Yemen before the war, are making a comeback in many areas due to gaps in the national vaccination program.

With a population of at least 3 million Ibb governorate is one of the most populated regions in Yemen today. Known to be more stable, probably hundreds of thousands have fled from neighbouring governorates since the beginning of the war and found refuge in its rural areas and the capital Ibb city from the different frontlines and ongoing fighting in Taiz, Ad-Dale and Hodeidah. The majority of Ibblives in the rural areas in the mountains with hardly any access to basic healthcare services.

Since 2016, MSF is working in the General Rural Hospital of Dhi As Sufal district in the south of Ibb governorate bordering Taiz governorate. The hospital is close to one of the Yemen war’s main front lines in Taiz. MSF is running the Emergency Room, Operational Theatre, Intensive Care Unit, and Inpatient Department for the most severe medical conditions for all age groups (neonatal, paediatric and adult patients), including physiotherapy. MSF also offers mental health care to patients admitted to the hospital and ensures mass casualty management capacity. On average, MSF teams offer 210 consultations in the Emergency Room and perform 87 surgeries per week. MSF also put in place a referral system for further patient care. In 2019 the teams made 3282 referrals to and from MSF supported hospitals in Ibb city, Dhi As-Sufal and Taiz Houban and other public hospitals. In Ibb city MSF supports Naser General Hospital where since 2018 a team runs the ER and the isolation ward. On average the Emergency Room does more than 300 consultations and admits more than 200 patients each week. The ER is much frequented by poorer, marginalised and displaced people living in Ibb governorate.

Due to poor sanitation and a lack of clean water country wide as well as gaps in the regular vaccination programmes, outbreaks of diseases remain common. MSF has treated 135 patients for diphtheria in its Isolation Ward in Naser Hospital in 2019. It is the only diphtheria treatment unit in the governorate, and the largest by numbers in Yemen. MSF runs Cholera Treatment Centre (CTC) in Ibb City and and Dhi As Sufal district in Ibb governorate since 2017. Both CTCs receive patients from Ibb and neighbouring Taiz, Ad-Dale and Hodeidah. Our health promotion teams support the CTC teams efforts with hygiene education and health awareness sessions in the hospitals our teams support and in the affected communities. In 2019, MSF teams treated almost 22,000 patients for cholera in the Ibb governorate alone.

MSF works in 12 hospitals and health centres across the country and provides support to more than 20 hospitals or health facilities in 12 governorates: Abyan, Aden, Amran, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ibb, Lahj, Saada, Sana’a, Shabwah, Taiz and Marib.