Dr. Salma Al Qadasi

Dr. Salma Al Qadasi is a consultant pediatrician at Al Sabeen Maternity and Child Hospital in Sana'a — Yemen's primary maternal and child health hospital, which has maintained operations throughout the conflict despite severe resource constraints, supported in part by international humanitarian organizations. With 14 years of pediatric practice, Dr. Al Qadasi has dedicated her career to the health of Yemen's most vulnerable population: children in a country experiencing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Yemen faces catastrophic levels of childhood malnutrition, with millions of children under five acutely malnourished and hundreds of thousands suffering life-threatening severe acute malnutrition. Dr. Al Qadasi's daily clinical work is defined by the management of this emergency: assessing children with wasting and edema, initiating therapeutic feeding with RUTF or F-75/F-100 therapeutic milks, managing the medical complications of severe malnutrition including hypoglycemia, hypothermia, and sepsis, and coordinating outpatient follow-up through community health workers.

Beyond malnutrition, she provides neonatal care for newborns at Al Sabeen — including resuscitation, management of neonatal sepsis, and care of low-birth-weight infants. She manages the pediatric infectious disease burden including cholera, measles, dengue, and acute respiratory infections in a population with disrupted vaccination and fragile immunity.

Dr. Al Qadasi's commitment to Yemen's children in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty makes her one of the most important members of the country's frontline health workforce.

Dr. Al Qadasi obtained her MBBCh from Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine and completed Pediatrics residency at Al Sabeen Hospital and Al Thawra Hospital. She holds the DCH (Diploma in Child Health) and the IMCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) Certificate from WHO. She has completed UNICEF and WHO training in severe acute malnutrition management using the WHO 10-step protocol, neonatal resuscitation (NRP), and pediatric emergency medicine in resource-limited settings through humanitarian organization training programs.

Dr. Al Qadasi's clinical expertise is shaped by Yemen's child health emergency. In severe acute malnutrition, she applies the WHO 10-step protocol: treating infections, correcting electrolyte and micronutrient deficiencies, providing therapeutic feeding (F-75 stabilization followed by F-100 or RUTF rehabilitation), and monitoring for refeeding complications. She manages neonatal sepsis with broad-spectrum antibiotics, neonatal jaundice with phototherapy, and low-birth-weight infants with kangaroo mother care and supportive feeding. In pediatric infectious disease, she manages cholera with ORS and IV fluids, measles and its complications, dengue shock syndrome, and severe pneumonia with oxygen and parenteral antibiotics. She performs neonatal resuscitation, pediatric IV access including intraosseous access, and nasogastric tube feeding.

Dr. Al Qadasi has contributed clinical data to UNICEF and WHO malnutrition surveillance in Yemen and has participated in nutritional status assessments conducted by international humanitarian organizations. Her clinical observations on severe acute malnutrition management and childhood disease patterns in conflict-affected Yemen contribute to the humanitarian health evidence base.

Al Sabeen Hospital serves Yemen's domestic population, primarily in Sana'a and surrounding areas, and operates under significant resource constraints with support from international humanitarian organizations. Dr. Al Qadasi consults in Arabic. Yemen's infrastructure challenges — including electricity, internet, and telecommunications disruptions — limit reliable video consultation availability. Dr. Al Qadasi serves as an important point of contact for international humanitarian health organizations providing paediatric support to Yemen's health system, including UNICEF, MSF, Save the Children, and other NGOs whose field teams coordinate with Al Sabeen's paediatric department. For children requiring specialist paediatric services beyond Al Sabeen's capacity — paediatric intensive care, paediatric surgery, paediatric oncology — the Ministry of Health's overseas medical referral programme facilitates evacuation to Jordan, Egypt, or India when funding is secured.

Dr. Al Qadasi has been recognized by the Yemen Pediatric Society for her outstanding dedication to child health and her exceptional contributions to managing the child malnutrition emergency — one of the most severe in the world — at Al Sabeen Hospital. She has received formal acknowledgment from UNICEF Yemen for her contributions to severe acute malnutrition management and childhood malnutrition surveillance activities. She has received recognition from MSF and Save the Children for her collaborative work with humanitarian paediatric programs at Al Sabeen Hospital, which relies heavily on NGO partnership for medications, therapeutic food supplies, and clinical support. Dr. Al Qadasi is regarded by Yemen's medical and humanitarian community as a vital advocate for Yemen's most vulnerable children.