| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"torresD" |
| Date: |
14 May 2006 11:31:37 AM |
| Object: |
Cuts squeeze lifeline to Gaza's sick BBC |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4756303.stm
Cuts squeeze lifeline to Gaza's sick
By Alan Johnston
BBC News, Gaza
An elderly man called Raabeh Al Masri
sat in a Gaza City hospital ward linked
by a tube in his arm to a machine that
keeps him alive.
Dialysis patients at Shifa Hospital
have had their treatment reduced
The dialysis unit was doing its job.
It was pumping and whirring,
and flushing his blood of contaminants.
But Mr Al Masri was worrying about the future.
He has watched a disturbing and
potentially dangerous decline in
the standard of care that the
hospital can give him.
Staff say that Western efforts to
starve the new Hamas-controlled
Palestinian government of cash
are partly to blame.
I want the European Union and the Americans to help us
Raabeh Al Masri
Kidney patient
On account of the hospital's
shortages of equipment and drugs,
Mr Al Masri's visits for dialysis
have been reduced from three to
two times a week.
And he says he definitely feels the difference.
"I am very, very sick," he said, in halting English.
"I can't sleep in the night.
My eyes can't see.
No oxygen. No oxygen."
He says that fluid builds up in his body,
and that his skin tone changes.
"I want the European Union and
the Americans to help us," he said.
"Because we have nothing here."
Out of cash
And Shifa Hospital's spokesman,
Juma As-Saqqa said:
"We are facing disastrous problems."
He said Israel's frequent shutting of
its border with Gaza on security grounds
have caused considerable disruption to supplies.
Surgery has been reserved for emergency patients
There have been many days of closure,
with the most recent coming after
Palestinian militants attempted to
launch an attack on Israeli workers
at the Karni cargo terminal.
Shifa Hospital's other major problem
is that the health ministry is simply
out of cash.
Like all other government departments,
it has received no money since Hamas
took over.
Israel stopped paying the tens of millions
of dollars a month that it owes the
Palestinians from customs and other
revenue collection.
The US and the European Union,
which regard Hamas as a terrorist
organisation,
have cut off all economic assistance.
And donations offered from the Islamic
world never reached the new government.
Banks refused to transfer it,
fearing that the Americans would
freeze them out of the international
financial system if they were deemed
to have assisted Hamas in any way.
The Western pressure is aimed at
forcing Hamas to renounce violence
and recognise Israel.
But in Hamas's view,
it is not just the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and Gaza that
constitute occupied Palestinian
territory - it is all of Israel too.
Toxins building
As the international political storm rages,
Dr As-Saqqa and his colleagues struggle to
keep Shifa going.
"Now we've stopped elective surgery in order
to divert what remains of our drugs to
emergencies," says Dr As-Saqqa
Health ministry cash shortages
are putting services at risk
But he worries most about the
dialysis ward.
He says that having to reduce patients
like Mr Al-Masri from three to two
dialysis sessions a week is dangerous.
Toxins can accumulate in the blood
of people who are already very ill.
Four of these patients died last month.
Dr As-Saqqa said:
"They had been doing dialysis
for more than five years,
and they died last month.
Why?"
He says that he cannot prove that
the reduction in the amount of
dialysis they received caused
their deaths -
but that as a doctor he is
convinced that it was the reason.
Reflecting on the wider
financial disaster now
engulfing his hospital,
Dr As-Saqqa said:
"I blame Hamas first.
I blame the European Union second.
I blame Israel. I blame the US.
"All of them are to blame because
humanitarian aid should not be
linked to the political situation."
Dr As-Saqqa believes that his
whole battered society is at
the moment on course for disaster.
He says that he fears a
complete breakdown of authority.
Dr As-Saqqa dreads the thought -
but he fears that there will be bloodshed.
.
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