Two hospitals were reopened on Sunday in the western sector of Mosul, a year after Iraqi security forces recaptured the war-ravaged city from ISIS, agencies reported.
The hospitals – one an emergency center, the other specializing in gynecology and obstetrics – replace buildings that were destroyed when the jihadist group was defeated in the city in July 2017.
The new buildings are prefabricated units that have been installed on the sites of the original facilities.
The emergency facility houses 75 beds and the other has 50 beds, bringing the total number of hospital beds in Nineveh province to 1,000, AFP reported.
But this figure is nowhere near the 6,000 that were available for patients before ISIS took Mosul in 2014, said Falah al-Tai, a doctor who runs the province’s health services.
“The province’s health sector has suffered a lot of damage, but the central government in Baghdad gives it very little importance,” he said, adding that humanitarian groups are helping to fill the gap.