Aleppo cardio center resumes mass heart surgeries
ALEPPO, Syria. May 19 (Interfax) - The Al Bassel Heart Hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo has resumed mass heart surgeries, of which it has successfully performed almost a hundred in the past week alone, the hospital's chief doctor Khaled Haidar told journalists.
"Over the past week surgeons from the Al-Bassel heart hospital performed 90 complicated heart surgeries, 50 more patients in need of an urgent surgical intervention are in the line," Haidar said.
Since active hostilities began in Aleppo in 2012, the hospital complex has come under fire a number of times. The hospital was repeatedly bombed and exposed to intense mortar and even rocket shelling. However, the medics defied the extreme conditions by continuing to fight their patients' lives.
In 2016, no sooner had fighting abated, the local authorities did all they could to provide the working conditions in the Al Bassel hospital buildings, the chief doctor said.