Analysis of the First 100 Patients From the Syrian Civil War Treated in an Israeli District Hospital.

OBJECTIVE: An analysis of the injuries and treatment of the first 100 patients from the Syrian civil war was conducted to monitor quality of care and outcome. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: As reports of the collapse of health care systems in regions within Syria reach the media, patients find themselves crossing the border into Israel for the treatment of war injuries. Among these patients are combatants, noncombatants, women, and children. Treatment, that is free at the point of care, is a humanitarian imperative for war wounded, and this paper reports the care in an Israeli district hospital of the first 100 patients received. METHODS: With ethics committee approval, data from the Trauma Registry and electronic patient records were collected and analyzed. No identifying data are presented. RESULTS: Most patients (94) were male. Seventeen patients were younger than the age of 18 years; 52 patients were in their twenties. Most injuries were the results of gunshot or blast injury (50 and 29 patients, respectively). Two multiple-trauma patients died, 8 were transferred for specialist care, and 90 patients returned from Ziv Hospital to Syria after discharge. CONCLUSIONS: The experience of the care of patients across a hostile border has been unprecedented. Hospital protocols required adjustment to deliver quality clinical and social care to patients suffering from both the acute and chronic effects of civil war.

Hemipelvectomy images of loss caused by war.

As we treat our 230th patient from the Syrian conflict, the pathology we see is more debilitating and the humanitarian needs of the wounded have become even more obvious. This case presents some graphic images of the realities of war. Care in the most advanced units cannot restore broken limbs, let alone broken lives. We present a case of a young war-injured man, who suffered severe crush injury to the pelvis and lower limb, arriving at our medical facility after a delay of hours. The lower limb was shattered from the pelvis down (essentially a traumatic hemipelvectomy). His life had been saved in Syria by ligation of the femoral vessels in an unknown facility by an unknown medical team. On arrival in a centre in Israel for definitive care of an unsalvageable leg, formal hemipelvectomy was performed.

Acute shortening and angulation for limb salvage in a paediatric patient with a high-energy blast injury.

We present the case of an 8-year-old girl casualty of the Syrian conflict who arrived with open fractures of the right tibia and fibula with extensive bone and soft tissue loss as well as an open fracture of the left calcaneus as the result of a high-energy blast injury. She was successfully treated with repeated debridement procedures, external fixation with acute temporary shortening and angulation of the right leg and skin grafting to both lower limbs.