Dateline ACT

Palestine Territories: 08/02

Care amidst the roadblocks

Augusta Victoria Hospital & Village Health Clinics

Jerusalem: July 19, 2002
by Rainer Lang

The little boy doesn't look much older than five years. But he is already of school-going age. Muhammad Azmi is seven years old and suffers from kidney failure, needing dialysis three times a week. The only place where a Palestinian child can receive this treatment is at the Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) in East Jerusalem, run by ACT member Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

Muhammed is from Jenin, but with curfews in place in many towns in the Palestinian Territories and with checkpoints controlling access to and from the Westbank, his parents have had no other choice but to move closer to Jerusalem so that Muhammed can receive his regular dialysis treatment at AVH. Muhammed is not the only one who has had to leave his hometown. According to Dr. Tawfiq Nasser, Chief Executive Officer of the AVH, a few months ago the hospital had to evacuate 53 dialysis patients from the Westbank in order to guarantee them regular treatment at AVH, which specialises in dialysis and cancer care.

Suhur (8) smiles for the camera while tucked into a chair in the dialysis ward, where she will sit for four hours for her treatment. Rana (15) bravely looks away when the nurse sticks the needles in her arm and groin, but her expression says – this hurts. The two girls have to make their way from Hebron to Jerusalem three times a week for their dialysis.

"I have not seen my family for three weeks" Dr. Nasser says, "they are in Ramallah under curfew". As with many of the other 180 staff members, he stays in the hospital’s compound during the week as they would not otherwise be able to get to work. And more and more Palestinians now depend on the services of the AVH. "With the collapse of the Palestinian Authorities and the restrictions imposed by the Israeli Army, hospitals in the Westbank are no longer functioning", Nasser explains.

AVH hospital staff have to live not only with restrictions on their movement but with a cut to their salaries as well. "Last month in order to have funds to purchase medicine, I could pay only part of their salaries" laments Nasser. He feels fortunate that he has not yet had to dismiss any staff members, but given the exigencies of the current situation, without the emergency funding provided by ACT members the hospital would be in crisis. "If the situation continues till the end of the year" he says, "we don’t know what we'll do".

Virtually none of the Palestinian community is now able to obtain adequate medical treatment. There is no access to radiation oncology and bureaucratic wrangling with the Isreali authorities has made it impossible for AVH to install the remaining equipment needed for radiation therapy. Consequently, chemotherapy is the only cancer treatment the hospital is currently able to provide. Dr.Nasser is concerned that the increasing radicalisation of the population will leave little or no hope for building a viable civil society in the region.

Doctor Shihab Walid and four nurses load medicine into a van in front of the LWF office in Jerusalem, preparing for a visit to the village of Qibie in the West Bank. They are part of LWF’s Village Health Clinics teams who have become one of the few links to the outside world for many of the villages they serve. "The people need help – just that", the doctor says. The Israeli checkpoints cut the villages off and isolate them. Access to hospitals has become very difficult and most people cannot afford to pay for an ambulance. With the roads blocked, reaching the villages is often very difficult and on occasion the health teams have had to walk along donkey trails to reach their destination.

Today, the Village Health Clinic is serving the women of the village. One of the main tasks of the team is postnatal care and young mothers are lining up with their babies.. The clinics are equipped to deal with most of the minor illnesses they encounter, doing basic laboratory tests and giving free medicines to treat such things as skin ailments, ear, nose and throat problems, cuts, and bruises.

Providing primary health care, home care and health education to a population of 40,000 persons entrapped within their Westbank villages, these ACT/LWF clinics have become an important lifeline. "They depend on our service", says Dr. Walid.