Rebuilding Syria’s Health System
As Mustafa Haj Omar neared graduation from medical school at Damascus University, the Syrian revolution started. Peaceful demonstrations quickly escalated into government-led violence against protestors.
Thrust into humanitarian health through necessity, Omar organized a team of medical students to help the wounded. The team risked their lives to stem the bleeding of the injured and assist in surgeries at war-torn hospitals with limited electricity and other shortages.
“I have identified important deficiencies in the health system of northwestern Syria that I intend to address in the coming years.”
After completing a series of elective rotations in the U.S., Omar returned to Syria. For five years, he assisted in and independently performed hundreds of lifesaving vascular surgeries at the center of the conflict. During his informal surgical residency, Omar volunteered with the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a leading health NGO in Syria. He led a SAMS effort that found that severe pediatric malnutrition far exceeded maximum global ratios—results that led to funding for anti-malnutrition interventions.
Omar moved to Turkey in 2019, where he took a job with Qatar Charity, an international humanitarian and development NGO, in its Turkey Mission. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he played a key role in the interagency COVID-19 task force for northwest Syria led by the World Health Organization. He led an initiative to establish 14 emergency centers with a 1,400-bed capacity to treat COVID-19 patients.
With a concentration in humanitarian health at the Bloomberg School, Omar hopes to continue his public health work and plans to help rebuild his country’s decimated health system. “My dream is to help people not only in Syria but other conflict zones where people are suffering from a lack of health care services,” he says.
