AFRICA/LIBYA-The medical facilities in Benghazi have serious difficulties

Benghazi (Agenzia Fides) - The doctors involved in the Libyan city of Benghazi are in enormous difficulty due to lack of funds and structures that impede their work seriously. "The conditions are very bad,” is said in a statement by an executive of the only rehabilitation center in the city for patients with spinal cord injury or stroke, released by the agency IRIN. Currently the center houses 65 long-stay patients, but the prospects of recovery of patients is limited by severe shortages of equipment. Until a couple of years ago the center was funded in part by the Libyan government in Tripoli, then funds were withdrawn without any notice. Now it goes ahead with a limited budget of the Libyan Red Crescent and other local NGOs. Most of the nurses went away at the beginning of the conflict, but according to the responsible of the Mission of the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Benghazi, the most urgent needs are not as pressing in the city as elsewhere in the country, as in Misratha, where the Italian NGO Emergency, the only international country committed in Benghazi, was forced to leave the country for security reasons. In the Psychiatric Center in the Libyan city since the beginning of the clashes, hospital admissions have increased by 50% and there are not enough medicines for everyone. The same difficulties are being experienced, for orthopedic services, in the hospital Al Hawari, where there are no devices for the treatment of patients with limb fractures that continue to increase because of the war. The Benghazi Medical Center, the largest hospital in the city, opened 30 years ago, but one of its floors is still closed waiting to be completed. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 05/04/2011)