Syria besieged hospital: Sleeping and resting were an impossible luxury.

Although Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)/Doctors Without Bordersis currently able to run six health facilities in the north of Syria, in most of the country the organization cannot have teams working directly on the ground providing hands-on medical care. But in order to ensure some continuity of medical provision in the midst of this war, MSFsupports over 100 medical centers across Syria where medical help is needed the most, with a focus on besieged communitiesand active conflict areas where there is little or no other medical support being provided.Dr. S is a young surgeon who graduated shortly after the outbreak of the crisis in Syria. He now works in a makeshift hospital in a semi-rural neighbourhood located to the east of Damascus. This is a facility that received dedicated MSF support and supplies throughout the period of siege, support that continues on a regular monthly basis to this day. He tells the story of his medical journey - anexperience that parallels the war in the country.A temporary truce that death could not penetrateThere was a pregnant woman who was trapped during the time we were under full siege. She was due to deliver soon. All negotiation attempts to get her out failed. She needed a cesarean operation, but there was no maternity hospital we could get her to, and I had never done this operation before. A few days before the expected delivery date, I was trying to get a working internet connection to read up information on doing a C-section. The clock was ticking and my fear and stress started to peak. I wished I could stop time, but the woman’s labour started. The atmosphere was tense already, with mad shelling hammering the area. The bombardments had reached a deafening level. We brought the woman into the operating theatre and I did the operation. Joy overwhelmed me when we knew the baby girl was healthy, and her mother too.In this madness, our work as surgeons is to save as many lives as we can. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail. It is as if we repair the damage that the war left. But this operation was not the usual damage repair; it helped bring new life to this earth. It was a magical moment; a temporary truce that death could not penetrate.I chose a deserted school as my hospitalI graduated as a surgeon shortly after the crisis started in Syria. In the Summer of 2011, with the acceleration of events and medical needs increasing, I started working in small private hospitals. A few months later, I was arrested, as were many of my colleagues. At the beginning of 2012 I was out, and I returned to treat people and carry on my general surgery specialization. I was working in improvised field hospitals, operating in conditions that were largely unsuitable for medical work. We worked in the east of Damascus and then in the Ghouta area, where the medical need was urgent. At the end of 2012, a semi-rural neighborhood located to the east of Damascus witnessed violent clashes. The area was packed with displaced people at the time, without any medical center to treat wounded people. I went there and decided to setup a field hospital. Following a search, I chose a deserted school that had previously been hit. The upper floors were damaged, but the ground floor, as well as the basement, were in a good shape. Despite the daily, continuous shelling on the area, and the constant fear and stress, the medical team with which I worked managed to provide tremendous medical care to those who needed it the most. The siegeOne day in July 2013, around 10:00 am, the hospital was hit by a rocket. The massive explosion turned the place upside down and its pressure tore out the wooden walls.Medical tools and people were thrown in all directions. Soon a dust cloud settled over the building and made it impossible to see. The explosion was like nothing before. I thought that worsecould follow and this explosion might be only the beginning of somet