Taiz, Yemen – It was approaching 10:30am in the dialysis centre of the Republican Hospital in Taiz when a machine began filtering excess fluids, toxins and salts from the blood of Omar Mukhtar Hammoud. The 16-year-old suffers from kidney failure and is one of 270 patients who regularly receive dialysis at the centre in the government-held city in southwest Yemen. But with essential medical supplies and fuel running critically low under the renewed Houthi siege, doctors fear they may soon be unable to provide the treatment that keeps their patients alive.
Dr Essam Mahyoub Dahan, the centre’s director, warned that a complete shutdown could happen within days. The supplies, which are expensive, are normally provided by the Yemeni Ministry of Health every three months. But the latest delivery which was due earlier this month failed to arrive because of the Houthi siege on Taiz city.
It began in the first week of October after Houthi advances in the Taiz countryside. The city was previously under complete Houthi siege between 2015 and 2016, in the early years of Yemen’s ongoing war. Across Taiz governorate, where battles are raging between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and Iranian-allied Houthi fighters, the number of patients at risk is far greater.
In an October 12 statement, the governorate’s health office warned that the continued siege and obstruction of essential supplies could endanger the lives of 1,110 patients with kidney failure. They depend on dialysis services in the governorate’s hospitals, which collectively provide about 210 dialysis sessions a day. International humanitarian and health organisations have issued similar warnings about the impact of the siege on the already fragile healthcare system in Taiz.
On Thursday, Amnesty International called on the Houthis to immediately reopen vital roads into and around the city, warning that the closure of the main road between Taiz and the southern port city of Aden threatened hundreds of thousands of civilians with losing access to food, water and healthcare. Taiz’s hospitals depend heavily on diesel-powered generators because much of the city’s electricity infrastructure was destroyed during the war that began 11 years ago and has not been restored. The renewed Houthi siege has severely disrupted the entry of fuel, including the diesel needed to run hospital generators and lifesaving medical equipment.
Dr Shaheed al-Ameri, deputy director-general for technical affairs at the Republican Hospital, said the shortages have had a devastating impact on medical services. Our stocks ran out early in the siege and we are now buying it on the black market almost every day, at prices that have reached five times what they were before the siege.” Al-Ameri warned that the longer the siege continues, the more prices will rise and the further medical services will deteriorate. The hospital has already suspended operations in some departments, including essential units, he said.
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