During the year 2018, Heevie Organization continued supporting the Medical Rehabilitation activities in Duhok governorate through providing the necessary assistance to the specialized DOH facilities in this regard. This project helped to minimize the load on the exhausted local health facilities which are serving, in addition to the host community, the IDPs and the refugees as well.

The project involves supporting different aspects of Medical Rehabilitation services like training and capacity building of the staff and physiotherapists, extension of service provision hours, provision of raw materials for the prosthetic limbs and renovations and rehabilitation activities of the buildings. The facility of focus in this project is Duhok Specialized Center of Rheumatic Diseases and Medical Rehabilitation which was supported through extending the service provision hours 4 hours/ day, provision of raw materials for the prosthetic limp department and training of the physiotherapist in Italy in coordination with SIA organization from Italy.

The project was further extended to involve community outreach and home visits for the patients with disabilities to provide the necessary physiotherapy sessions, train and educate the family members on the scientific way to deal with their patients, house modification and provision of the necessary assistive devices. The plan of the year 2019 involves providing a special car for transporting the patients with disabilities from their houses to the different health facilities to receive the necessary treatment and interventions.

The project activities were supported by GIZ in the first three months of 2018 and continued by a direct support from Heevie afterwards. During 2018, around 7,919 patients have received physiotherapy and medical rehabilitation and the other services within the project as follows:

• Number of patients received physiotherapy session in the medical rehabilitation center with the patients visited and received physiotherapy session at their home (community outreach): 7,919