For over 30 years Israel has been providing Palestinian society with medical support. Serious diseases have been eradicated; Palestinian infant mortality rates have been dramatically reduced; Palestinian medical staff have received training in Israeli hospitals; and Israel has helped open fully equipped intensive care and open heart surgery units in Palestinian hospitals. These and many other aspects of Israel's medical support are highlighted in a powerful and fact-packed recent article by Theo Dov Golan, which had been published by Beyond Images overe here.
Here are the facts: Israel was responsible for the welfare of the Palestinians during these years, 1967 – 1994, until the Palestinian Authority took over. During that period, Israel has presented annually dramatic documented achievements to the World Health Organisation (WHO) either by myself, as head of the Israeli delegation, or by the other Israeli officials of the Ministry of Health. This included the total eradication in the Palestinian population of poliomyelitis, neonatal-tetanus and measles. Also, Israel dramatically reduced the death rate of Palestinian newborns from over 60/1000 to 19/1000 within those 27 years of Israel’s presence.
MediaBackspin points out that the British Medical Journal have printed a rebuttal to the mind numbing attack by Derek Summerfield on Israel that Honest Reporting critiqued here.
Read the full rebuttal here.
Summerfield and his ilk never mention that Israel is the sole democratic, pluralistic society in the Middle East. The Israeli government and national healthcare funds provide equal health services for all citizens—regardless of religious or ethnic background. Hospitals, too, are non-denominational. For example, although the staff at Hadassah Hospital in north Jerusalem are predominantly Jewish, the hospital provides excellent care to a largely Muslim Arab community.
For the past four years Israel has kept its healthcare system alive in the face of terrorism. And yet not only has Israel maintained the level of standard health care for its citizens, it has also initiated a number of out-reach programmes.
An example is called Saving Children. Started by the Peres Peace Centre, this programme enables hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical care, in particular cardiac surgery, from Israeli surgeons. A leading medical officer from the Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv told me: "On many occasions a significant percentage of the patients in the paediatric intensive care unit are children from the Palestinian territories."
The Malki Foundation is an example of an Israeli alternative healthcare service. Named after an Israeli teenager killed in a Jerusalem pizzeria by a Palestinian bomber, it provides paramedical services for children with special needs—both Arabs and Jews.
Yes, the BMJ was outrageous. That is, IF YOU SUPPORT AN APARTHEID PRACTISING STATE!!!!!
Posted by: Ricardo | November 10, 2004 at 15:57