1st women’s health center opens doors in Syria’s Idlib

The first women's health center in Syria's Idlib province, designed to accommodate up to 3,500 patients, has been opened near the Turkish border by an Istanbul-based NGO.

Mehmet Cihat Aygun, a board member of the Alliance of International Doctors (AID), told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that the new center would include units specialized in obstetrics and gynecology with a view to providing women with medical treatment both before and after they give birth.

AID was established in Istanbul in 2011 by a group of volunteer doctors, pharmacists, dentists and nurses. It is devoted to providing assistance to people in regions affected by disasters and poverty.

Set up inside the Atme Camp, directly across the border from Turkey's southern Reyhanli district, the facility hopes to meet the needs of some 3,500 women now living in and around the camp.

"There were no health centers for women in the camp cities [in Idlib]," Aygun said. "So we established this one hoping to cater to local women in the area."

Women who come to the center, he added, "will receive regular examinations by our experts".

Currently, roughly 490,000 women are estimated to live in camps near Syria's border with Turkey.

Syria has only recently emerged from a devastating civil war that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.