Dr. Mohamed Al Sharhan, Chairperson of PHFS and Ms. Nisreen Rubaian, UNHCR’s Representative in Kuwait during the signing ceremony. © UNHCR/Sanaa Al-Hebshi
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and Patients Helping Fund Society (PHFS) signed today a grant agreement to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in the sectors of healthcare and water supply.
The agreement was signed by Dr. Mohamed Al Sharhan, Chairperson of PHFS and Ms. Nisreen Rubaian, UNHCR’s Representative in Kuwait at the PHFS’s headquarters in Kuwait City.
The contribution will support UNHCR’s efforts in providing primary healthcare services through 35 health facilities, which offer consultations and treatment of endemic and non- communicable diseases, in addition to antenatal, delivery and postnatal care services. The facilities are expected to provide healthcare services to more than 296,000 people including refugees and host community members.
The agreement also aims to finalise developing and upgrading water networks in UNHCR-manged camps covering 345,000 refugees. UNHCR and its partners will continue maintaining, operating, and upgrading the existing water infrastructure, in addition to providing technical support to the Department of Public Health Engineering, in particular the water supply monitoring programme.
UNHCR Representative in Kuwait Nisreen Rubaian expressed her appreciation to Patients Helping Fund Society’s long history of cooperation towards supporting refugees and displaced people, and stated: “This agreement will support us to alleviate the suffering of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as a result of the funding gap, and we look forward to working on more joint projects in the future to support refugees and displaced people, who reply on such generous initiatives to ensure a minimum level of decent living.”
On his part, Dr. Mohamed Al Sharhan reiterated PHFS’s commitment to support UNHCR and its projects in MENA and West Africa, in addition to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and he applauded UNHCR’s Refugee Zakat Fund effort in alleviating the suffering of refugees and forcibly displaced people.
The latest UNHCR statistics shows that there are more than 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who live in overcrowded camps and are still facing continuous challenges, lack of proper shelter and difficult access to water supply, sanitation, and healthcare services.
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