Taiwan building mobile health clinics in Turkey – Taipei Times

Taiwan is working with a nonprofit humanitarian organization in Turkey to provide mobile health clinics for people in earthquake-stricken areas there, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Mission in Ankara said.

Ten mobile clinics are to be set up in neighborhoods in Hatay Province, an area that was hit hard by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6, the representative office said on Thursday.

A memorandum of understanding for the project was on Thursday signed by Representative to Turkey Volkan Huang (黃志揚) and a representative of Turkey’s Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (ASAM), it said.

Photo courtesy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Mission in Ankara via CNA

Under the memorandum, Taiwan is to work with ASAM to provide medical assistance to quake victims, mainly by providing mobile health clinics in rural areas where medical resources are not easily accessible, Huang said.

ASAM staff member Mehmet Salih Demirel said that the mobile clinics are being constructed from shipping containers, with three being used for each clinic.

Containers would also be remodeled as rest shelters for medical personnel and as offices for local health officials, Demirel said.

Taiwan has already donated 65 containers to ASAM, the representative office said, adding that the Turkish Ministry of Health would supply the medical equipment for the mobile clinics.

ASAM general coordinator Ibrahim Vurgun Kavlak thanked Taiwan for its support, saying that it was the first country to help Turkey, before “all the other international organizations and actors.”

“We feel the support of the Taiwanese government and Taiwanese people in many different fields, from education to health, from psycho social support to humanitarian aid,” he said.