8 nov 2018
The unshaven doctor with circles under his eyes enters the children’s ward at Al Nassar Hospital in Gaza City. It’s a Thursday evening, almost the weekend. The ward is bleak and eerily quiet, but for the occasional wail of an infant.
At each cubicle, sectioned off by curtains, it’s a similar image: A baby lies alone in a bed, hooked up to tubes, wires and a generator; a mother sits in silent witness at the bedside.
Dr. Mohamad Abu Samia, the hospital’s director of paediatric medicine, exchanges a few quiet words with one mother, then gently lifts the infant’s gown, revealing a scar from heart surgery nearly half the length of her body.
At the next cubicle, he attends to a child suffering from severe malnutrition. She lies still, her tiny body connected to a respirator. Because electricity runs only four hours a day in Gaza, the baby must stay here, where generators keep her alive.
“We are very busy,” the overwhelmed doctor says. “Babies suffering from dehydration, from vomiting, from diarrhoea, from fever.” The skyrocketing rate of diarrhoea, the world’s second largest killer of children under five, is reason enough for alarm.
But in recent months Dr. Abu Samia has seen sharp rises in gastroenteritis, kidney disease, paediatric cancer, marasmus – a disease of severe malnutrition appearing in infants – and “blue baby syndrome”, an ailment causing bluish lips, face, and skin, and blood the colour of chocolate.
Before, the doctor says, he saw “one or two cases” of blue baby syndrome in five years. Now it’s the opposite – five cases in one year.
Asked if he has studies to back up his findings, he says: “We live in Gaza, in an emergency situation … We have time only to relieve the problem, not to research it.”
Yet Palestinian Ministry of Health figures support the doctor’s findings. They show a “doubling” of diarrheal disease, rising to epidemic levels, as well as spikes last summer in salmonella and even typhoid fever.
Independent, peer-reviewed medical journals have also documented increased infant mortality, anaemia, and an “alarming magnitude” of stunting among Gaza’s children.
A Rand Corporation study has found that bad water is a leading cause of child mortality in Gaza.
Simply put, Gaza’s children are facing a deadly health epidemic of unprecedented proportions.
“So much suffering,” says Dr. Abu Samia. It is, he says, a matter of “life and death”.
Multiple factors are to blame for the uncoiling health crisis, but medical experts agree on one central culprit: Gaza’s scarce and contaminated drinking water, owing to Israel’s economic siege, its repeated bombing of water and sewage infrastructure and a collapsing aquifer of such poor quality that 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking-water wells are below minimal health standards for human consumption.
Dr. Majdi Dhair, director of preventive medicine at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reports a “huge increase” in waterborne disease, which he says a “directly related to drinking water” and to contamination from untreated sewage water flowing directly into the Mediterranean.
A visit to Gaza’s densely-packed Shati (or “Beach”) refugee camp helps explain why. There, 87,000 refugees and their families – expelled from their towns and villages during the creation of Israel in 1948 – are packed into half a square kilometre of cement-block structures along the Mediterranean.
“Water and electricity? Forget about it,” says Atef Nimnim, who lives with his mother, wife, and two younger generations – 19 Nimnims in all – in a small three-room dwelling in Shati.
The Gaza aquifer that sputters through their taps is far too salty, hardly anyone in Gaza drinks it any more. For drinking water, Atef’s 15-year-old son piles plastic jugs onto a wheelchair and rolls it to the mosque, where he fills the family’s containers, courtesy of Hamas.
Most families, even in the refugee camps, spend up to half their modest income on the desalinated water from Gaza’s unregulated wells. But even that sacrifice comes at a cost.
Faecal contamination
Palestinian Water Authority tests show that up to 70 percent of the desalinated water delivered by a small army of private trucks and stored in the camps’ rooftop tanks, is prone to faecal contamination.
Even microscopic amounts of E coli can bloom into a health crisis.
The reason for that, explains Gregor von Medeazza, UNICEF’s water and sanitation specialist for Gaza, is that the longer the E coli remain in the water, the more “they start growing” in the water and the worse it gets. This leads to chronic diarrhoea, which in turn can lead to stunting in Gaza’s children, as a British medical journal recently documented. One effect, von Medeazza says, is on “brain development,” and a “measurable effect on the IQ” of affected children.
High salinity and nitrate levels from Gaza’s collapsing aquifer – so badly overpumped that seawater is flowing in – are at the root of many of Gaza’s health problems. Elevated nitrate levels lead to hypertension and renal failure, and are linked to the rise in blue baby syndrome. Waterborne maladies like infant diarrhoea, salmonella and typhoid fever are caused by faecal contamination – both from the rooftop desalinated water and from the 110 million litres of raw and poorly-treated sewage that flows into the Mediterranean every day.
Because electricity here is shut off for 20 hours a day, Gaza’s sewage plant is essentially useless; hence, brown water spews into the sea, 24/7, from long pipes above a beach just north of Gaza City. Yet in the summertime, children continue to swim along Gaza’s beaches.
In 2016, five-year-old Mohammad Al-Sayis swallowed sewage-laced seawater, ingesting faecal bacteria that led to a fatal brain disease. Mohammad’s was the first known death by sewage in Gaza.
Making matters worse: Israeli rockets and shells damaged or destroyed Gaza water towers and pipelines, wells and sewage plants causing an estimated $34m in damages. This further crippled the delivery of safe, clean water, deepening the health catastrophe here. An even greater impact comes from Israel’s economic blockade, which Dr. Abu Samia blames directly on the area’s growing malnutrition.
The severe shortages of water and electricity, along with rising poverty, have damaged nutritional levels, Dr. Abu Samia says.
“It is affecting babies.”
Before the siege, he said, he had no patients suffering from malnutrition.
Now he frequently sees children with nutritional disease.
“We are seeing babies with marasmus” – a severe nutritional disease. “The last two years, it is increasing more and more.”
Gazans well remember the cynical words of Israeli minister Dov Weissglas in 2006, when he infamously compared the blockade to “a meeting with a dietician …We have to make them much thinner, but not enough to die.”
Gaza to become uninhabitable by 2020
Now, quite apart from the hundreds of deaths by rockets, missiles and bullets in the three most recent Gaza wars, children here are getting ill and dying from bad water and the infectious diseases that result.
“Occupation and siege are the primary impediments to the successful promotion of public health in the Gaza Strip,” declared a 2018 study in the Lancet, which cited “significant and deleterious effects to health care.”
Without a major intervention by the international community, and soon, humanitarian groups warn Gaza will become uninhabitable by 2020 – barely a year from now.
Failure to urgently intervene will result in “a huge collapse”, says Adnan Abu Hasna, Gaza spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which recently had all its US funding cut by the Trump administration.
Otherwise, in less than two years, he says, “Gaza will not be a liveable place.”
And yet, liveable or not, the vast majority of Gaza’s two million people have nowhere else to go. Most are simply trying to live as normal lives as possible under extremely abnormal circumstances.
At dusk on a summer night, on a spit of rock and earth in the middle of Gaza harbour, five of those two million people try to enjoy a few minutes of quiet.
All around Ahmad and Rana Dilly and their three young children, the harbour ripples with life. Fishermen haul in their nets. Kids pose for selfies on broken concrete blocks and rebar – remnants of an old bombing raid.
Rana pours mango soda; Ahmad insists on handing out some chocolate wafers.
“You are with Palestinians,” he laughs, dismissing those who reject his offer.
Their three young children nibble on chips.
The Dillys have the same problems as many Gaza families.
Ahmad, a money changer, had to rebuild his shop in 2014 after an Israeli missile destroyed it.
Like most Gazans, the family has to contend with the salty water from the taps and the inherent risks of disease from the trucked water they rely on. But these problems mean little to them compared with their wish to feel safe and to enjoy fleeting moments of living like a normal family.
“I know the situation is horrible, but I just want to let my kids have a little change from time to time,” Ahmad says. “I want them to see something different. I want my family to feel safe.”
In the distance, an explosion echoes. Ahmad pauses for a short moment, then ignores it.
He says, “I come here to the sea, and forget about all the world.”
~ Al Jazeera/Days of Palestine
At each cubicle, sectioned off by curtains, it’s a similar image: A baby lies alone in a bed, hooked up to tubes, wires and a generator; a mother sits in silent witness at the bedside.
Dr. Mohamad Abu Samia, the hospital’s director of paediatric medicine, exchanges a few quiet words with one mother, then gently lifts the infant’s gown, revealing a scar from heart surgery nearly half the length of her body.
At the next cubicle, he attends to a child suffering from severe malnutrition. She lies still, her tiny body connected to a respirator. Because electricity runs only four hours a day in Gaza, the baby must stay here, where generators keep her alive.
“We are very busy,” the overwhelmed doctor says. “Babies suffering from dehydration, from vomiting, from diarrhoea, from fever.” The skyrocketing rate of diarrhoea, the world’s second largest killer of children under five, is reason enough for alarm.
But in recent months Dr. Abu Samia has seen sharp rises in gastroenteritis, kidney disease, paediatric cancer, marasmus – a disease of severe malnutrition appearing in infants – and “blue baby syndrome”, an ailment causing bluish lips, face, and skin, and blood the colour of chocolate.
Before, the doctor says, he saw “one or two cases” of blue baby syndrome in five years. Now it’s the opposite – five cases in one year.
Asked if he has studies to back up his findings, he says: “We live in Gaza, in an emergency situation … We have time only to relieve the problem, not to research it.”
Yet Palestinian Ministry of Health figures support the doctor’s findings. They show a “doubling” of diarrheal disease, rising to epidemic levels, as well as spikes last summer in salmonella and even typhoid fever.
Independent, peer-reviewed medical journals have also documented increased infant mortality, anaemia, and an “alarming magnitude” of stunting among Gaza’s children.
A Rand Corporation study has found that bad water is a leading cause of child mortality in Gaza.
Simply put, Gaza’s children are facing a deadly health epidemic of unprecedented proportions.
“So much suffering,” says Dr. Abu Samia. It is, he says, a matter of “life and death”.
Multiple factors are to blame for the uncoiling health crisis, but medical experts agree on one central culprit: Gaza’s scarce and contaminated drinking water, owing to Israel’s economic siege, its repeated bombing of water and sewage infrastructure and a collapsing aquifer of such poor quality that 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking-water wells are below minimal health standards for human consumption.
Dr. Majdi Dhair, director of preventive medicine at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reports a “huge increase” in waterborne disease, which he says a “directly related to drinking water” and to contamination from untreated sewage water flowing directly into the Mediterranean.
A visit to Gaza’s densely-packed Shati (or “Beach”) refugee camp helps explain why. There, 87,000 refugees and their families – expelled from their towns and villages during the creation of Israel in 1948 – are packed into half a square kilometre of cement-block structures along the Mediterranean.
“Water and electricity? Forget about it,” says Atef Nimnim, who lives with his mother, wife, and two younger generations – 19 Nimnims in all – in a small three-room dwelling in Shati.
The Gaza aquifer that sputters through their taps is far too salty, hardly anyone in Gaza drinks it any more. For drinking water, Atef’s 15-year-old son piles plastic jugs onto a wheelchair and rolls it to the mosque, where he fills the family’s containers, courtesy of Hamas.
Most families, even in the refugee camps, spend up to half their modest income on the desalinated water from Gaza’s unregulated wells. But even that sacrifice comes at a cost.
Faecal contamination
Palestinian Water Authority tests show that up to 70 percent of the desalinated water delivered by a small army of private trucks and stored in the camps’ rooftop tanks, is prone to faecal contamination.
Even microscopic amounts of E coli can bloom into a health crisis.
The reason for that, explains Gregor von Medeazza, UNICEF’s water and sanitation specialist for Gaza, is that the longer the E coli remain in the water, the more “they start growing” in the water and the worse it gets. This leads to chronic diarrhoea, which in turn can lead to stunting in Gaza’s children, as a British medical journal recently documented. One effect, von Medeazza says, is on “brain development,” and a “measurable effect on the IQ” of affected children.
High salinity and nitrate levels from Gaza’s collapsing aquifer – so badly overpumped that seawater is flowing in – are at the root of many of Gaza’s health problems. Elevated nitrate levels lead to hypertension and renal failure, and are linked to the rise in blue baby syndrome. Waterborne maladies like infant diarrhoea, salmonella and typhoid fever are caused by faecal contamination – both from the rooftop desalinated water and from the 110 million litres of raw and poorly-treated sewage that flows into the Mediterranean every day.
Because electricity here is shut off for 20 hours a day, Gaza’s sewage plant is essentially useless; hence, brown water spews into the sea, 24/7, from long pipes above a beach just north of Gaza City. Yet in the summertime, children continue to swim along Gaza’s beaches.
In 2016, five-year-old Mohammad Al-Sayis swallowed sewage-laced seawater, ingesting faecal bacteria that led to a fatal brain disease. Mohammad’s was the first known death by sewage in Gaza.
Making matters worse: Israeli rockets and shells damaged or destroyed Gaza water towers and pipelines, wells and sewage plants causing an estimated $34m in damages. This further crippled the delivery of safe, clean water, deepening the health catastrophe here. An even greater impact comes from Israel’s economic blockade, which Dr. Abu Samia blames directly on the area’s growing malnutrition.
The severe shortages of water and electricity, along with rising poverty, have damaged nutritional levels, Dr. Abu Samia says.
“It is affecting babies.”
Before the siege, he said, he had no patients suffering from malnutrition.
Now he frequently sees children with nutritional disease.
“We are seeing babies with marasmus” – a severe nutritional disease. “The last two years, it is increasing more and more.”
Gazans well remember the cynical words of Israeli minister Dov Weissglas in 2006, when he infamously compared the blockade to “a meeting with a dietician …We have to make them much thinner, but not enough to die.”
Gaza to become uninhabitable by 2020
Now, quite apart from the hundreds of deaths by rockets, missiles and bullets in the three most recent Gaza wars, children here are getting ill and dying from bad water and the infectious diseases that result.
“Occupation and siege are the primary impediments to the successful promotion of public health in the Gaza Strip,” declared a 2018 study in the Lancet, which cited “significant and deleterious effects to health care.”
Without a major intervention by the international community, and soon, humanitarian groups warn Gaza will become uninhabitable by 2020 – barely a year from now.
Failure to urgently intervene will result in “a huge collapse”, says Adnan Abu Hasna, Gaza spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which recently had all its US funding cut by the Trump administration.
Otherwise, in less than two years, he says, “Gaza will not be a liveable place.”
And yet, liveable or not, the vast majority of Gaza’s two million people have nowhere else to go. Most are simply trying to live as normal lives as possible under extremely abnormal circumstances.
At dusk on a summer night, on a spit of rock and earth in the middle of Gaza harbour, five of those two million people try to enjoy a few minutes of quiet.
All around Ahmad and Rana Dilly and their three young children, the harbour ripples with life. Fishermen haul in their nets. Kids pose for selfies on broken concrete blocks and rebar – remnants of an old bombing raid.
Rana pours mango soda; Ahmad insists on handing out some chocolate wafers.
“You are with Palestinians,” he laughs, dismissing those who reject his offer.
Their three young children nibble on chips.
The Dillys have the same problems as many Gaza families.
Ahmad, a money changer, had to rebuild his shop in 2014 after an Israeli missile destroyed it.
Like most Gazans, the family has to contend with the salty water from the taps and the inherent risks of disease from the trucked water they rely on. But these problems mean little to them compared with their wish to feel safe and to enjoy fleeting moments of living like a normal family.
“I know the situation is horrible, but I just want to let my kids have a little change from time to time,” Ahmad says. “I want them to see something different. I want my family to feel safe.”
In the distance, an explosion echoes. Ahmad pauses for a short moment, then ignores it.
He says, “I come here to the sea, and forget about all the world.”
~ Al Jazeera/Days of Palestine
7 nov 2018
Dozens of Israeli soldiers accompanied many colonialist settlers’ buses into the northern West Bank city of Nablus, to visit a historic site, and invaded many neighborhoods in the city to remove the Palestinians from the streets, before clashing with dozens of youngsters, who hurled stones at them, while the soldiers fired live rounds, gas bombs, concussion grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets, wounding at least twenty Palestinians.
Media sources in Nablus said many army jeeps invaded Amman Street, and the areas surrounding Joseph’s Tomb, east of the city, and attacked dozens of protesters, wounding at least twenty.
The invasion was carried out by approximately 1000 settlers, in many buses, and dozens of soldiers in armored army vehicles.
They added that the soldiers fired a barrage of gas and concussion grenades at the protesters in addition to a number of homes and shops, causing fire in a shop for selling spare parts for vehicles.
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Nablus, Ahmad Jibreel, said a young man suffered a fracture in the arm, while another young man was shot with live rounds in his leg, before the two were rushed to Rafidia Hospital.
He added that several Palestinians were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, and fourteen others suffered the effects of teargas inhalation, and received the needed treatment by PRCS medics.
In related news, the soldiers stopped an ambulance transporting an elderly woman to a hospital, in the eastern part of Nablus, and forced the ambulance to turn around and look for alternate, longer roads.
Furthermore, the soldiers invaded the Dahia area in Nablus city, and Kafr Qalil town, east of the city, before invading the home of Yasser Afeef Amer, and searched the property, in addition to occupying its rooftop to use it as a monitoring post.
The army also abducted a young man, identified as Ahmad Anan Mansour, 19, from his home in the city, after invading and reaching it.
The Patriarch Joseph is revered by Jews, Muslims, Christians and Samaritans, but Israel only allows Jews into the shrine, as they believe the tomb to be his final resting place.
Palestinians generally hold that the tomb is the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious and social figure.
Media sources in Nablus said many army jeeps invaded Amman Street, and the areas surrounding Joseph’s Tomb, east of the city, and attacked dozens of protesters, wounding at least twenty.
The invasion was carried out by approximately 1000 settlers, in many buses, and dozens of soldiers in armored army vehicles.
They added that the soldiers fired a barrage of gas and concussion grenades at the protesters in addition to a number of homes and shops, causing fire in a shop for selling spare parts for vehicles.
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Nablus, Ahmad Jibreel, said a young man suffered a fracture in the arm, while another young man was shot with live rounds in his leg, before the two were rushed to Rafidia Hospital.
He added that several Palestinians were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, and fourteen others suffered the effects of teargas inhalation, and received the needed treatment by PRCS medics.
In related news, the soldiers stopped an ambulance transporting an elderly woman to a hospital, in the eastern part of Nablus, and forced the ambulance to turn around and look for alternate, longer roads.
Furthermore, the soldiers invaded the Dahia area in Nablus city, and Kafr Qalil town, east of the city, before invading the home of Yasser Afeef Amer, and searched the property, in addition to occupying its rooftop to use it as a monitoring post.
The army also abducted a young man, identified as Ahmad Anan Mansour, 19, from his home in the city, after invading and reaching it.
The Patriarch Joseph is revered by Jews, Muslims, Christians and Samaritans, but Israel only allows Jews into the shrine, as they believe the tomb to be his final resting place.
Palestinians generally hold that the tomb is the funerary monument to Sheikh Yousef Dweikat, a local religious and social figure.
5 nov 2018
A number of Palestinian citizens were injured on Monday evening when the Israeli occupation forces (IO)F opened fire at the Palestinians taking part in the Great March of Return on Gaza coast.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 10 Palestinians, including a journalist, paramedic, and child, were injured by live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets, and teargas canisters.
Spokesman for the National Committee to Break the Siege Adham Abu Salmiya on Sunday said that border protests will continue until the decade-long blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip is lifted.
Abu Salmiya praised the role played by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Gaza coast marches over the past few weeks have been a major part of the Great March of Return which is aimed at pressuring Israel to lift Gaza siege and shedding light on the Palestinian refugees' right to return.
Since the start of Gaza border protests on 30 March, 230 Palestinians have been killed by the IOF, including 40 children and 6 disabled people, and over 23,000 injured.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 10 Palestinians, including a journalist, paramedic, and child, were injured by live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets, and teargas canisters.
Spokesman for the National Committee to Break the Siege Adham Abu Salmiya on Sunday said that border protests will continue until the decade-long blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip is lifted.
Abu Salmiya praised the role played by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Gaza coast marches over the past few weeks have been a major part of the Great March of Return which is aimed at pressuring Israel to lift Gaza siege and shedding light on the Palestinian refugees' right to return.
Since the start of Gaza border protests on 30 March, 230 Palestinians have been killed by the IOF, including 40 children and 6 disabled people, and over 23,000 injured.
31 oct 2018
Gaza Ministry of Health on Wednesday warned of the serious drug shortage hitting health facilities in the Gaza Strip and threatening the life of thousands of patients.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health Yousef Abu al-Reish, during a meeting with the General Administration of Hospitals and General Administration of Pharmacies at his office in Gaza city, said that Gaza health facilities lack 47% of essential medicines.
Abu al-Reish said that the most important sections, such as the emergency, operation, and intensive care departments, lack the necessary capabilities to keep operating.
The meeting discussed the possible mechanisms to manage the health situation and the crisis plaguing Gaza hospitals, and the policies and protocols that should be pursued toward more rational use of resources.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health Yousef Abu al-Reish, during a meeting with the General Administration of Hospitals and General Administration of Pharmacies at his office in Gaza city, said that Gaza health facilities lack 47% of essential medicines.
Abu al-Reish said that the most important sections, such as the emergency, operation, and intensive care departments, lack the necessary capabilities to keep operating.
The meeting discussed the possible mechanisms to manage the health situation and the crisis plaguing Gaza hospitals, and the policies and protocols that should be pursued toward more rational use of resources.
The approval rate, in September, for an Israeli permit to leave Gaza for treatment abroad, for those injured in the March of Return protests near the border fence with Israel, was significantly lower than the overall approval rate: one of 18 applications, or 1%, was approved; one denied; and 16 delayed, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, in its monthly report on health access for Palestinian patients in the occupied territories, published on Wednesday.
It said that, overall, only 58% of applications for a permit to leave the besieged enclave, through Israel, for medical treatment in East Jerusalem or West Bank hospitals, were approved in September.
A total of 1,074 (555 male; 519 female), or 58% of the 1,837 applications to cross Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, in September, were approved. Over a third (37%) of permits approved were for children under age of 18, and almost a fifth (22%) were for elderly people over 60 years of age.
The report said 95 patient applications (66 male; 29 female), or (5%) of the total, were denied permission to cross Erez, for health care, in September. Those denied included seven children under the age of 18 years and 14 patients aged 60 years or older.
A total of 18% of denied applications were for appointments in neurosurgery, 17% for ophthalmology, 17% for orthopedics, and 12% for cancer treatment and investigation. More than 90% of denied permit applications were for appointments at hospitals in East Jerusalem or the West Bank.
WHO said that 668 patient applications (394 male; 274 female), or 36% of the total, were delayed access to care, receiving no definitive response to their application by the date of their hospital appointment.
Of these, 161 applications were for children under the age of 18 and 71 applications were for patients aged 60 years or older. Of the 668 delayed applications, 16% were for appointments in oncology, 15% for orthopedics and 10% for ophthalmology. The remaining 59% were for 26 other specialties.
Of the 1,837 applications to cross Beit/Hanoun Erez for health care, in September, 30% were for children under age of 18, 17% were for patients over the age of 60 and 45% of applications were for female patients.
Two-thirds (67%) of applications to cross Erez were for appointments in East Jerusalem hospitals, less than a fifth (18%) were for Israeli hospitals and less than one in six (15%) were for hospitals in the West Bank.
Makassed Hospital (29%) and Augusta Victoria Hospital (29%), both in East Jerusalem which the United States recently stopped all funding to, received three-fifths of referrals.
Permit applications for the top five specialties accounted for more than three-fifths (63%) of referrals: oncology (30%); hematology (9%); pediatrics (9%); orthopedics (8%); and ophthalmology (7%). The remaining referrals were for 25 other specialties, according to WAFA.
It said that, overall, only 58% of applications for a permit to leave the besieged enclave, through Israel, for medical treatment in East Jerusalem or West Bank hospitals, were approved in September.
A total of 1,074 (555 male; 519 female), or 58% of the 1,837 applications to cross Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, in September, were approved. Over a third (37%) of permits approved were for children under age of 18, and almost a fifth (22%) were for elderly people over 60 years of age.
The report said 95 patient applications (66 male; 29 female), or (5%) of the total, were denied permission to cross Erez, for health care, in September. Those denied included seven children under the age of 18 years and 14 patients aged 60 years or older.
A total of 18% of denied applications were for appointments in neurosurgery, 17% for ophthalmology, 17% for orthopedics, and 12% for cancer treatment and investigation. More than 90% of denied permit applications were for appointments at hospitals in East Jerusalem or the West Bank.
WHO said that 668 patient applications (394 male; 274 female), or 36% of the total, were delayed access to care, receiving no definitive response to their application by the date of their hospital appointment.
Of these, 161 applications were for children under the age of 18 and 71 applications were for patients aged 60 years or older. Of the 668 delayed applications, 16% were for appointments in oncology, 15% for orthopedics and 10% for ophthalmology. The remaining 59% were for 26 other specialties.
Of the 1,837 applications to cross Beit/Hanoun Erez for health care, in September, 30% were for children under age of 18, 17% were for patients over the age of 60 and 45% of applications were for female patients.
Two-thirds (67%) of applications to cross Erez were for appointments in East Jerusalem hospitals, less than a fifth (18%) were for Israeli hospitals and less than one in six (15%) were for hospitals in the West Bank.
Makassed Hospital (29%) and Augusta Victoria Hospital (29%), both in East Jerusalem which the United States recently stopped all funding to, received three-fifths of referrals.
Permit applications for the top five specialties accounted for more than three-fifths (63%) of referrals: oncology (30%); hematology (9%); pediatrics (9%); orthopedics (8%); and ophthalmology (7%). The remaining referrals were for 25 other specialties, according to WAFA.
23 oct 2018
“I want to be able to go outside. I am not allowed to stay in the sun too much. And I want to be able to run with my friends.” These simple pleasures are what 15-year old Palestinian teenager, Muhammed Tamimi, longs for, after he was shot in the head at close range with a rubber-coated, metal bullet by Israeli soldiers during a nightly raid on the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in December last year.
The bullet went through Tamimi’s nose and lodged in his brain. A large part of his skull had to be removed, causing his left eye to sink. As a result, he was unable to move his eye in all directions, and couldn’t open his mouth fully. Israeli authorities claimed the teen sustained the injuries by falling off his bicycle.
South African doctors are now working on bringing some sunshine back into Tamimi’s life. Headed by award-winning South African surgeon, Ridwaan Mia, the team performed a five and a half hour operation on Tamimi in Johannesburg on Sunday - reconstructing a large part of his eye and mouth area.
Mia says the procedure went well, and is happy with the progress that Tamimi is making. The surgeon – who is best known for his ground-breaking work on young burn victim, Pippie Kruger – is confident that Tamimi will regain full use of his left eye.
Durban-based NGO, Shamsaan, decided to assist Tamimi after seeing his post on Facebook, asking for help to have reconstructive surgery.
On Monday, Tamimi received a special visitor. Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, commended all those involved in Tamimi’s operation. “They are proud examples of South Africans who give real expression to Madiba's spirit of sacrifice and caring for one's fellow man especially the most vulnerable amongst us,” he said.
Tamimi was in high spirits during Mandela’s visit and told him how excited he was to see his grandfather’s statues in Ramallah and Johannesburg. Once he has recovered fully, Mandla Mandela promised to take Tamimi to see Madiba's statue at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Footage of Muhammed Tamimi’s cousin, Ahed Tamimi, responding to his brutal shooting by slapping an armed soldier who entered the family’s village – went viral in December.
- Source: Afro-Palestine Newswire Service
The bullet went through Tamimi’s nose and lodged in his brain. A large part of his skull had to be removed, causing his left eye to sink. As a result, he was unable to move his eye in all directions, and couldn’t open his mouth fully. Israeli authorities claimed the teen sustained the injuries by falling off his bicycle.
South African doctors are now working on bringing some sunshine back into Tamimi’s life. Headed by award-winning South African surgeon, Ridwaan Mia, the team performed a five and a half hour operation on Tamimi in Johannesburg on Sunday - reconstructing a large part of his eye and mouth area.
Mia says the procedure went well, and is happy with the progress that Tamimi is making. The surgeon – who is best known for his ground-breaking work on young burn victim, Pippie Kruger – is confident that Tamimi will regain full use of his left eye.
Durban-based NGO, Shamsaan, decided to assist Tamimi after seeing his post on Facebook, asking for help to have reconstructive surgery.
On Monday, Tamimi received a special visitor. Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, commended all those involved in Tamimi’s operation. “They are proud examples of South Africans who give real expression to Madiba's spirit of sacrifice and caring for one's fellow man especially the most vulnerable amongst us,” he said.
Tamimi was in high spirits during Mandela’s visit and told him how excited he was to see his grandfather’s statues in Ramallah and Johannesburg. Once he has recovered fully, Mandla Mandela promised to take Tamimi to see Madiba's statue at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Footage of Muhammed Tamimi’s cousin, Ahed Tamimi, responding to his brutal shooting by slapping an armed soldier who entered the family’s village – went viral in December.
- Source: Afro-Palestine Newswire Service
22 oct 2018
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned of serious complications that may threaten the lives of dialysis patients, due to lack of treatment.
The Director of Pharmacy Department in the ministry, Alaa Helles, said that serious complications threaten the chronic kidney patients in the Gaza Strip, due to severe shortage of injections of the hormone Erythropoietin.
He stressed that the depletion of these injections threaten kidney patients with serious complications that will force them to undergo weekly dialysis sessions.
The number of chronic patients who do not have treatment is more than 400 patients in need of the 4,000 therapeutic quota per month.
The Director of Pharmacy Department in the ministry, Alaa Helles, said that serious complications threaten the chronic kidney patients in the Gaza Strip, due to severe shortage of injections of the hormone Erythropoietin.
He stressed that the depletion of these injections threaten kidney patients with serious complications that will force them to undergo weekly dialysis sessions.
The number of chronic patients who do not have treatment is more than 400 patients in need of the 4,000 therapeutic quota per month.
