Date: 14 May 2020
Ref: 23/2020
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded on Thursday, 14 May 2020, a training course on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote Right to Health,” resuming its training activities which were interrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic. PCHR took all the preventive and health safety measures for the trainers and trainees by reducing the participants’ number by half, for a total of 13 female and male doctors – managers of Ministry of Health medical centers in Khan Younis. The 20-hour-training course was held over the course of 4 days, from 11-14 May 2020.
This training course is the third of its kind in 2020 and participants in this course were divided into two groups to maintain public health and safety standards under the coronavirus pandemic. This training course was organized under project “Promote, Respect, and Fulfill the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health in the Gaza Strip” implemented by PCHR in partnership with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) and funded by the European Union. The project is expected to continue until the end of 2021, with 8 training courses per year targeting 200 members of the medical personnel and activists in the Gaza Strip.
At the end of the course, PCHR held a closing ceremony where Abdel Halim Abu Samra, Head of PCHR’s Training Unit, emphasized that these training courses fall within PCHR’s contribution to improving the reality of the health sector in the Gaza Strip under the catastrophic status quo caused by the Palestinian internal division and the Israeli closure and its consequent restrictions on the Gaza population. This includes the lack of freedom of movement for patients to access hospitals in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem and transfer of medicine, medical tools and equipment, which aggravated the humanitarian situation due to this extreme shortage, including hospital beds and specialized medical crews with the treat of complete collapse of the health sector in the Gaza Strip. Abu Samrah added that this training comes at a time when the world is undergoing a crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, which affected all aspects of life. In this context, PCHR works under an emergency plan and did not stop providing its services to the Palestinian public, through the use of modern technology to fulfil PCHR’s mission and achieve its goals.
Dr. Tamim Saqer, Head of Khan Younis Health Department, expressed his appreciation for PCHR’s efforts to conduct this training course under the state of emergency at the Ministry of Health to combat coronavirus. Dr. Saqer stressed the importance of this training in promoting and developing the capacities of workers in the field of human rights, especially the right to health, to improve access to health services and enhance community access to health, building their capacities and increasing public awareness. Dr. Saqer added that the training course brought them new knowledge, with the rich topics it addressed and its contribution to raising participants’ awareness of human rights in general, particularly the right to health. He also commended the competence of the trainers and training methodology both participatory and diverse.
