Ref: 05/2023
Date: 02 February 2023
On Thursday, 02 February 2022, The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded 2 training courses on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote the Right to Health.” The first training course was attended by 26 pharmacists, while the second course was attended by 24 doctors and nurses working at the primary healthcare centers in Gaza. The two 20-hours training courses were held in Gaza City from 06 January-02 February 2023.
These training courses are held under “Promote, Respect, and Fulfill the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health in the Gaza Strip” project implemented by PCHR in partnership with Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) and funded by the European Union. The project aims to improve access to healthcare, legal counseling, and legal assistance for Palestinian patients; to mainstream the culture of international human rights and humanitarian law, particularly the right to health, by building the capacities of those working in the health sector and right to health activists; and to promote improved monitoring, documenting, and reporting of violations of the right to health. A total of 33 training courses were implemented since the beginning of the project, targeting 827 participants, including 402 females, from the medical staff and right to health activists in the Gaza Strip.
At the end of the courses, PCHR held a closing ceremony where Raji Sourani stressed that PCHR will continue to train medical staffs to enhance their capacities, boost their skills and introduce them to the human rights system, praising their work in providing healthcare services to citizens in spite of the harsh circumstances and challenges due to the Israeli occupation practices and measures and the disastrous situation triggered by the Palestinian internal division that exacerbated patients’ humanitarian and health conditions.
Sourani addressed PCHR’s role in helping patients to access their right to treatment abroad for more than 20 years, reviewing the suffering of patients due to the Israeli occupation authorities’ measures and practices relevant to travel and freedom of movement to reach the hospitals in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and Israel. He called on the Palestinian healthcare system to work on localizing the healthcare service at the Gaza Strip hospitals, and to attract Palestinian medical expertise to work in the health sector in the Palestinian hospitals, thus ending patients’ suffering during their travel and movement.
Sourani praised the significant role of the medical staff in disseminating and promoting knowledge of the right to health, in order to spread this knowledge and apply it in their lives and health departments, as well as being pioneers in mainstreaming these ethics to improve the healthcare services to be of the highest attainable quality.. Sourani called on the participants to share what they learned in the course with their peers for the benefit of all, and not to hesitate to keep in touch with PCHR’s staff to benefit from its expertise and receive advanced trainings in this field.
For his part, Mr. Isma’il Abu Jazar, the Supervisor of the Community Based Rehabilitation Program at the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), said that the work with PCHR will continue, although this project has come to an end, in order to expand the number of targeted groups of medical staff with regard to the right to health issues, and raise their capacities and efficiency in providing qualitative healthcare services in accordance with a human rights perspective.
Mr. Mohammad Lafi, Coordinator of the Right to Health Project at the World Health Organization office in the Gaza Strip, emphasized that the courses have greatly contributed to raising the human rights knowledge of the medical personnel, particularly the right to health, in a way that would have a positive impact on the provision of medical services efficiently and effectively.
In his speech, Dr. ‘Abdulnasser Jasser, Head of the Pharmacists Syndicate in Gaza, commended the importance of this cooperation with PCHR in training pharmacists in Gaza, expressing his hope that more will be targeted in new courses to promote their human rights culture and knowledge of human rights concepts and the right to health. At the end, he called for strengthening and developing the ties between PCHR and the Syndicate.
Dr. Ikbar Kaddoura, Director of Gaza Health Department, thanked PCHR for its efforts in training those working at the Ministry of Health’s primary care centres, stressing the importance of this training in improving and refining their abilities and raising their awareness of the right to health. Kaddoura called on the participants to use the knowledge acquired from this training in dealing with patients according to a human rights perspective, and to provide the best possible service that preserves their human dignity.
Finally, the participants commended the course, which was characterized by rich topics and contributed to raising their awareness on human rights in general and the right to health in particular, praising trainers’ efficiency and various and interactive training methods used during the courses.
