It was a typical summer day for 12-year-old Ahmed, who lives in a village in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. He was playing outside with his friends when he tripped, landed on a sharp rock and sustained a deep cut in his right leg—an injury that could have been life-threatening if not treated promptly.
Though the nearest health facility is hours away from Ahmed’s village, thankfully, one of International Medical Corps’ mobile medical clinics was nearby. The clinic’s medical staff cleaned Ahmed’s wound and administered the necessary care to prevent infection. Ahmed’s leg healed without infection or complications, and has recovered fully.
“Without the mobile clinic, we don’t know what would have happened to our son,” said Houssine, Ahmed’s father. “The nearest health centre is too far, and we had no way to get there. This clinic saved Ahmed’s life.”
For centuries, people living in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco have struggled to access healthcare services. Though some rural health centres exist, most do not have a doctor on staff or the necessary medications, medical equipment and supplies to provide adequate treatment.
Reaching a doctor can take two or more hours by car, and the cost of hiring a car can be prohibitively expensive. As a result, many wounds go untreated, and most women give birth at home without a trained midwife, nurse or doctor, which can be dangerous.
To make matters worse, on September 8, 2023, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region. It was the country’s deadliest quake since 1960 and its most powerful in more than a century, killing almost 3,000 people and affecting about 300,000. The quake also damaged or destroyed most of the region’s rural health centres, leaving villagers without access to any health services, under-resourced or otherwise.
International Medical Corps immediately responded to the earthquake, sending an emergency team to conduct an assessment and build a response.
“It was clear during our assessment that there was a gap between healthcare needs and healthcare facilities in the mountains,” explains Dr. Ramzi Benbaba, Emergency Response Team Lead with International Medical Corps in Morocco. “We identified local partners to help bridge those gaps using mobile clinics that now travel to remote areas, providing effective healthcare to many of these villages, some for the first time.”
Working with local partners Maroc Solidarite Medico-Sociale (MS2) and Association Marocaine de Solidarité et de Développement (AMSED), our team distributed critical supplies to earthquake-affected populations and supported two mobile medical units that have reached approximately 200 villages in the region. International Medical Corps also partnered with Italian NGO CESVI to include child-friendly spaces in the mobile clinics, where the teams provide arts and crafts, music and other fun activities for children.
Each mobile team consists of a doctor, nurse, midwife, psychologist, medications and medical supplies. Staff from MS2 works in one mobile clinic on the north side of the mountains, while AMSED staff members work in the other, on the south side. International Medical Corps provides medicines, equipment, supplies and staff support as needed.
“Morocco, compared to other countries in crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, has quite a stable health system,” says Dr. Benbaba. “But in the remote Atlas Mountains, it can be more challenging. Thankfully, while travelling with the mobile clinics, we found very few cases of communicable and infectious diseases, like cholera or acute watery diarrhoea. More often, we encountered people with chronic diseases, like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and hypothyroidism, which can be treated with proper medication and lifestyle changes.”
Such was the case for a 62-year-old man living in a remote village in the mountains. For months, he suffered from painful, chronic headaches and fatigue, which stopped him from completing simple daily activities. He needed help but didn’t have the means to get to a health centre. When the mobile clinic came to his village, he was reluctant to visit. He didn’t want to complain. Thankfully, his family convinced him to see the clinic’s doctor, who diagnosed him with dangerously high blood pressure. Though it took several weeks for our team to earn his trust, eventually, the man began visiting the clinic on his own for treatment. After routinely taking the prescribed medication, improving his diet and making other lifestyle changes, his blood pressure lowered to a healthy level—reducing his risk of stroke.
When patients with more serious cases are seen by one of the mobile teams, there are two referral mechanisms: if it’s not urgent, the team gives the patient a referral letter that they can bring to a hospital in Marrakesh. Once a week, the AMSED mobile team picks up five patients, and the MS2 team picks up four. Each team then brings the patients to a larger hospital with which they have an agreement so the patients can easily receive treatment.
Though the International Medical Corps team will be leaving Morocco at the end of the year, the work we started here will continue, thanks to our local partnerships: AMSED has already secured additional funding to continue its mobile clinic, and MS2 is in the process of finalising its support. This is an important aspect of International Medical Corps’ approach to humanitarian assistance: we often provide health services support through a network of local partners, including ministries of health, so that our work can continue long after the need for our emergency response team has receded.
Since the earthquake hit Morocco more than a year ago, International Medical Corps has supported 33,245 health consultations and 3,064 mental health consultations, and procured nearly 1.6 million pharmaceutical items. We’ve provided child-friendly spaces to 3,214 children and psychosocial and protection services to nearly 1,800 people. We’ve provided health and hygiene promotion sessions for 31,490 people and procured and delivered more than 250,000 non-food items, including blankets and hygiene kits.
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