Ref: 37/2022

Date: 7 April 2022

Time: 11:00 GMT7^th

of April marks World Health Day, and the World Health Organization (WHO) themed it for this year as “Our Planet, Our Health.” To focus global attention on the urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being.

WHO estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis that is the main threat to human health as well as being a health crisis.[1]In Palestine, the environment in Gaza and the West Bank is affected due to wastage of natural resources, various forms of pollution, poor water quality, and continued disregard for environmental issues.

All Palestine’s environmental problems resulted from the Israeli occupation policies and practicesIn the West Bank, vacant areas are subjected to pollutants coming from settlements’ pumping almost on daily basis large quantities of untreated sewage towards Palestinian valleys and plains near those settlements, threatening both human’s health and the environment. Furthermore, West Bank cities suffer from the pollution caused by the Israeli industrial areas, hazardous solids and liquid waste dumps, as the Israeli factories dispose at least 50% of their waste in the West Bank lands.

According to UN reports, 200,000 tons of waste are disposed per year and most of it is toxic and hazardous.

In the Gaza Strip, during the Israeli military aggression in May 2021, IOF targeted infrastructure facilities, including water facilities, sewage treatment plants and electricity networks, and this resulted in serious repercussions on the environment and health realities, as sewage leaked into the groundwater, polluting water sources. Also, IOF attacks on sewage treatment plants and the public electricity network resulted in untreated wastewater being pumped into the sea, causing a public health hazard.

All of this was behind the spread of diseases and epidemics among the population of the Gaza Strip that lacks a health system qualified to deal with serious diseases.

Over two years, Palestinian hospitals were burdened beyond their capacities, and operated in harsh conditions that lacked basic resources or even medical crews to face the Covid-19 pandemic.

This exposed the fragility of the healthcare system, which mainly provides 2 million Palestinians medical services. The deterioration in the health sector is mainly attributed to the Israeli closure policy imposed on the Gaza Strip for 15 years, and the political bickering between the parties to the Palestinian political division.

The shortage of medicines continues in the Ministry of Health (MOH)’s central warehouses, as the number of drugs categories at zero stock has reached 256 out of 516, with a 49.6%  deficit rate, while the number of categories that are sufficient for less than 3 months has reached 74 (14.3%). Moreover, the central warehouses have acute and serious shortage of the essential medical supplies list; as the number of categories at zero stock has reached 285 out of 853, with a 33% deficit rate, in addition to 60 other categories that are sufficient for less than 3 months (10.2%), according to MOH’s statistics. The ongoing shortage of essential medicines and medical supplies has a negative impact on the quality of health services provided for patients, which threatens their lives and increases financial burden on the poor people, especially when they are forced to buy medicines and medical supplies from the private sector.

The Gaza Strip hospitals have endured a chronic shortage in specialized health professions, negatively impacting some medical and surgical specialties, most importantly oncology, family medicine, nephrology, ophthalmology, cardiac surgery, psychiatry, emergency medicine, radiology, rheumatology, pathology, and neurology.

In 2022, the Israeli authorities have banned the import of new medical radiology devices for the Gaza Strip hospitals. According to PCHR’s follow-up, the Israeli authorities repeatedly refused official requests to allow the entry of 8 stationary radiology devices and 6 other mobile machines into the Gaza Strip in addition to other medical devices necessary for patients’ healthcare at the hospitals.

Also, the absence of such devices affects the healthcare services provided to patients at intensive care units in hospitals as well as Covid-19 patients. Medical sources stressed that such devices should be available at all the respiratory triage centers and inpatient departments at all hospitals.  He underscored that procurement of these devices has become a must, particularly after many of the available devices broke down and became out of service due to excessive use^[2]. Due to the fact that the Gaza Strip lacks important medical devices, particularly radiotherapy devices, the Gaza Strip patients rely on a bureaucratic and lengthy referral  system.

This system includes several complex procedures: booking an appointment at the referral hospital, obtaining an exit permit from the Israeli occupation to travel via Beit Hanoun “Erez” crossing, which usually takes several weeks, and is often unjustifiably delayed or denied or for frivolous reasons that do not consider the critical condition of patients. These Israeli restrictions on the travel of patients referred for treatment abroad continued, as the occupation authorities denied 7,514 Palestinians referred for testament abroad from travel, out of 21,532 permit requests, i.e. 34.8% of total applications.This year has witnessed a breakdown in the Gaza Patient Referral Mechanism for Treatment Abroad, which aggrevated the suffering of patients reffered for treatment aborad and put their lives at risk. Sine the beginign of this years, PCHR documented 3 death cases[3] for patients as Palestinian hospitals they were referred to refused to receive several patients or demanded them to leave before completing their treatment despite their deteriorating health conditions.

In light of the above, PCHR:

• PCHR calls upon the internatinal community to put pressure on Israel to immediately stop damaging the Palestinian environment and destroying infrastructure facilities, in order to avoid further deterioration of environmental health due to pollution of air, water, soil and seawater.
• Calls upon the international community and the World Health Organization to pressure Israel to compel it to abide by its obligations and to allow the entry of medical necessities into the Gaza Strip, including medicines, medical supplies, and modern medical devices, especially Radiation therapy equipment.
• Calls on the Palestinian Ministry of Health to conduct a comprehensive assessment and correction of the Gaza patients’ referral system for treatment abroad to ensure that the appropriate treatment service is provided to patients suffering from serious and incurable diseases.
• Calls on that the Palestinian government to intensify its efforts with Palestinian civil society institutions to raise awareness of environmental threats, activate international treaties to hold the occupation accountable for its violations and protect the environment in order to achieve sustainable development.

——————————–

[1] WHO, World Health Day 2022 Our planet, our health https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-health-day/2022

[2] Press release, Israel Bans Import of Medical Devices into Gaza Strip Hospitals, 30 January 2022, for more information see: https://pchrgaza.org/israel-bans-import-of-medical-devices-into-gaza-strip-hospitals/

[3] To Avoid Recurrence of al-Nawati Tragedy.. PCHR Calls Upon MOH to Reconsider Gaza Patient Referral Mechanism for Treatment Abroad – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (pchrgaza.org)