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Health crisis in Palestine

By revere on June 15, 2006.

If you want a preview of what widespead absenteeism in the health sector, overloaded health care facilities and a breakdown in social infrastructure would be like in an influenza pandemic, we've got one for you. It isn't from a biological virus, but the viruses of hatred, intolerance and sectarian violence. Palestine and Israel, where else?

Internecine warfare amongst the Palestinians is nothing new. It's like a cancer, eating the flesh of normal civil life. Nor are indiscriminate attacks on innocent Israelis new. Nothing new either about Israel's state-inflicted cruelty and collective punishment in the name of security. Now the US and other donor nations have moved from malign neglect to explicit stupidity by stopping financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (not the same as the Hamas government, note).

On June 13 the World Health Organization (WHO) took the unusual step of warning of a humanitarian health crisis in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories:

The health sector in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) is currently facing an acute funding crisis mainly because of the recent interruption or reduction of support from major donors and delays in transfer of tax revenues. Urgent action is required in order to avert a humanitarian crisis.

The crisis is seriously affecting the ability of the Palestinian Ministry of Health to deliver critical health care services and maintain public health programmes. The Ministry of Health is responsible for more than 60% of all primary health care centres and hospital beds in the oPt and for almost half of all maternity beds. It is also responsible for most public health programmes. In several governorates, it is the sole health service provider. These vital services must be maintained if a humanitarian health crisis is to be averted.

Due to the funding crisis, staff have not received salaries since March. Absenteeism among health workers is reportedly on the rise. Primary health care centres and hospitals are running out of essential drugs. Several governorates are experiencing fuel shortages and are thus unable to provide normal vaccination services. (WHO Press release)

There have already been human cases of H5N1 infection in nearby Iraq and Egypt and both Gaza and Israel have had infected poultry. Considering disease is war's constant companion and friend, destroying the health sector in a densely populated enzootic area is both the height of folly and the depth of cruelty.

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Wow! You actually threaded the needle of condemning violence and stupidity on both sides! This is hard to do and takes courage to even attempt.

Thanks for being willing to bring up this isssue, which usually causes spasmodic emissions of hateful derision.

Greenhammer: Thanks. But hold on. The crap will start coming soon. It always does.

Won't hear crap from me. The only argument I have is the movement from "malign neglect to explicit stupidity" in stopping funding. I'd have been tempted to use stronger language (although stupidity also works, considering the chance for global suffering if HPAI develops in Gaza...)

The stupidity is that Americans think that what happens to Palestinians, Sudanese, slum dwellers in Brazil, or..... doesn't personally effect them. Yet such unhappy situations are affecting us more than we know. Besides the now admitted breeding ground for terrorists, poverty stricken groups of people are breeding grounds for infectious diseases, some of which may not stay "over there". H5N1 or some other disease may well hit us harder than 1,000 al Quedas.

Kathy,

Americans are only barely aware that any of those situations exist. We are seen by the rest of the world as alarmingly provincial and dangerously ill-informed about the rest of the planet.