The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in streamlining processes which allow refugee doctors and other healthcare workers to make up for the shortfall in healthcare delivery, which many countries are facing increasingly. The protracted conflict in Syria is the biggest driver of forced displacement internationally with refugees, including healthcare workers seeking safety in host countries, however many face challenges to entering the workforce in a timely manner. The majority are in countries surrounding Syria (Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey) however the restrictive labour policies in these countries, particularly for healthcare workers have forced many to look further afield to Europe or the Gulf. Egypt's context is interesting in this regard, as it hosts a smaller number of registered Syrian refugees and was initially welcoming of Syrian medical students and doctors. However, recent socio-political changes have led to restrictions in training and work, leading doctors who initially considering staying in Egypt to increasingly consider it a transit country rather than a destination country. Here, we explore the processes by which Syrian doctors in Egypt can work and how documented policies may differ to practice. We do this through a document review and from the first-hand experiences of the authors.
The objective of the study is to assess the middle-term effects (1 year after intervention) of two community-based mental health interventions, Common Elements Treatment Approach intervention, CETA, and Narrative Community Group Therapy intervention, NCGT, in two cities of the Colombian Pacific region (Buenaventura and Quibdó). A follow-up study was conducted on a cohort of trial participants. In this trial, the positive effects of two mental health interventions were evaluated; assessment was carried out in separate groups (CETA arm, NCGT arm and a control group) of the reduction of symptoms of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and function impaired mentality. The participants were Afro-Colombian survivors of the armed conflict and displacement living in Buenaventura and Quibdó. They were surveyed using the same instrument used in the original trial. Intent-to-treat analyses were performed, and longitudinal mixed-effects regression models with random effects were used to analyse the middle-term effects of the interventions. At 1-year post-intervention, participants in Buenaventura who received the CETA intervention experienced a decrease in depression (-0.23; p = 0.02), post-traumatic stress symptoms (-0.23; p = 0.02) and total mental health symptoms (-0.14; p = 0.048). In Quibdó, the NCGT intervention significantly improved function impairment (-0.30; p = 0.005). CETA and NCGT interventions have the potential to maintain a reduction of mental health symptoms in participants from the Colombian Pacific region.