BY Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri
About 4,500 surgeries were performed on victims of Boko Haram attacks by the International Committee on Red Cross (ICRC) between 2015 and 2017 in crisis-ridden Borno and Yobe States.
The ICRC performed surgeries on 590 victims of insurgency in 2015, 1,030 victims in 2016 and 2,871 victims in 2017.
Conducting journalists round the organisation’s medical facilities at the Borno State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri (SSHM) on Tuesday, the Head of ICRC Sub-delegation in Maiduguri, Beat Mosimann, said with the continuous Boko Haram’s asymmetric war techniques (hit-and-run, bomb blast), the “ICRC surgical team at the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri continues receiving victims of explosions and gunshots from different parts of Borno and Yobe States”.
He said in 2017 alone, “the two surgical teams have provided free surgical care to 751 patients, out of which 66 were treated as outpatients in accident and emergency department, while 685 others were admitted at the ICRC surgical ward and 2,871 surgical operations were performed at ICRC Operation Theatreâ€.
Mosimann said: “SSHM Trauma Department has improved services with functional X-ray, Blood Bank facilities and renovated Emergency Room,” adding that 5,491 blood donors were screened in the blood bank facilities of ICRC in Maiduguri in 2017, with 3,035 blood donors having their blood screened in 2016.
Details later…
