By Heba Kanso
BEIRUT, May 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – After months of testing, a hospital in Syria will have uninterrupted power from this week, charged by solar power in a project designers hope will save lives and can be repeated across the country.
Syria’s electrical grid has taken an big hit after six years of a volatile civil war with most the electrical infrastructure bombed, dismantled or destroyed, leaving hospitals relying on diesel generators but at the mercy of fuel shortages.
So the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), an international coalition of international medical organisations and NGOs, said it hoped creating the country’s first solar-power hospital would save lives.
“To have those active (hospitals) resilient and operational, it’s a matter of life (or death) for many, many people in the country,” said Tarek Makdissi, project director of UOSSM told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
