Most of the asylum-seekers and migrants intercepted or rescued at sea and those at detention centres required medical assistance. Generally, free primary health is accessible to people of concern, however non-Libyans sometime are required to pay a nominal price for some services provided at secondary health care facilities. In 2020, UNHCR health programme maintained two-pronged approach to (a) addressing the emergency needs and (b) enhancing national capacity to maintain sustainable health services to people of concern.
During the reporting period, UNHCR assisted a total of 24,000 people with medical consultations for vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers both in the urban setting (16,568) and in detention (7,180), introduced mobile clinics to cover the detention centres and phased out permanent presence in the form of physical health care clinic at DCs.
Urgent medical assistance was provided at disembarkation points to asylum-seekers and migrants intercepted or rescued at sea as well as those held/released from detention centres. A total of 648 medical screening and consultations were provided at disembarkation points.
In 2020, more than 2,000 mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) consultations were provided. As with other areas of healthcare, the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the difficulties of an already-weakened health system, affected by the conflict as well as by the shortage of qualified MHPSS staff.
To enhance the national capacity and sustainable health services to people of concern, UNHCR supported the local health system to avoid parallel health system for refugees. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNHCR has provided equipment, medical supplies, hospital tents, prefabricated containers, generators, ambulances, and training to enhance the response capacity of health facilities. For instance, UNHCR provided ten prefabricated containers for use as COVID-19 testing and reception facilities in Misrata, Benghazi and Azzawya, and to help expand space at primary healthcare centres. Later, in November 2020, UNHCR handed over two containers for health centres in Sebha (Al-Gurda Polyclinic and Althanawya Respiratory Clinic) to help support health authorities respond to COVID-19.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, UNHCR supported the re-opening of a primary healthcare centre in Gergaresh/Tripoli where there is a high concentration of refugees and asylum-seekers. The facility provided free integrated healthcare for Libyans and non-Libyans, refugees and migrants. In September 2020, UNHCR supplied a 100 kVA generator to the Gergaresh health care centre to ensure uninterrupted power supply for the facility and its equipment, including keeping medicines cool and dry. In December, protective medical equipment was provided to Al Marj hospital (100 km east of Benghazi) and its isolation centre, with a catchment area of 400,000 people. In lieu of movement due to COVID-19 measures, UNHCR in partnership with IRC and the Libyan Red Crescent (LRC) launched a 24-hour emergency medical hotline and ambulance service to assist refugees living in urban settings in Libya in need of urgent healthcare.
As part of its efforts to include refugee and asylum-seekers into the local health system, UNHCR successfully negotiated the access of tuberculosis cases to the national tuberculosis health programme.
UNHCR’s health SOPs were modified to address the secondary health care assistance with governmental facilities as the main referrals mechanism and to avoid future referrals to the private clinics.