Ref: 27/2020

Date: 23 June 2020

On Tuesday, 16 June 2020, The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded a training course on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote Right to Health,” attended by 25 doctors and nurses working in various departments at  Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, as the Centre resumes 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.  The 20-hour-training course was held over the course of 4 days, from 07-16 June 2020, in Sanabel Restaurant in Gaza City.

This training course was organized under the 3 years 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. This course also aimed at disseminating the culture of human rights and international humanitarian law, particularly the right to health by building and enhancing the capacities of health sector workers, in addition to monitoring and documenting violations of the right to health. A total of 8 training courses per year will be held by the end of 2021, 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 Abdul Halim Abu Samra, Head of PCHR’s Training Unit, asserted that since PCHR’s establishment, the right to health had been a priority contributing to the enhancement of the health sector in the Gaza Strip, which is in dire state due to the restrictions and measures imposed by the Israeli occupation, particularly the closure policy that aggravated its shortcomings as the sector suffers an acute shortage in medicine, medical tools and equipment and hospital beds, threatening a collapse of the health sector in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Ayman al-Farra, director of Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, praised PCHR’s efforts in holding such training courses under the state of emergency that the Palestinian Ministry of Health faces to combat the outbreak of corona virus. He stressed the importance of these training courses in promoting and developing the capacities of workers in the field of human rights, especially the right to health.

Al-Farra 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 diverse and participatory methodology used during the training sessions, and called for similar training courses in the future.