Medicine crisis appeal - zero stock drugs in Gaza and the West Bank
26 January 2012
A 23-year-old mother is waiting for her baby to receive life-saving treatment for congenital heart disease. He is just 17 days old. She waits and waits, but the medicine he so urgently needs has run out. It's as good as a death sentence.
Her name is Fatima. The baby is Sami. The scene is the occupied Palestinian territory.
Sami was diagnosed with congenital heart disease at just 17 days old. Fatima waits and waits, but the medicine Sami needs to stay alive, until an operation is possible, has run out. It could be a death sentence. "Without this medicine, my baby will die,' she says, wiping her tears. This is avoidable, yet it's a situation that has been a horrifying daily reality in Gaza and is now reaching crisis point in the West Bank.
Stocks of essential drugs were recently down to zero for the first time in the West Bank, the situation remains unstable placing the most vulnerable in danger.
This escalating crisis could easily be averted, and is compounded by the Israeli policy of collective punishment. It is because Palestinians live under occupation that the Israeli authorities control the taxes in Palestine. The Israeli government will often delay or withhold these taxes to pressurise the Palestinian Authority into compliance, most recently to stop the statehood bid at the UN. Palestinians are powerless to use their money to help their own people. The loss of the revenue has had a serious impact on the supply of essential medicines and medical equipment to the hospitals and clinics.
Behind this an even larger crisis looms. America has withdrawn funding to the Palestinian Authority and the UN agency UNESCO who support the Palestinian bid for UN recognition of statehood.
Medicine after medicine has run out. Behind every missing medicine there is a human tragedy. Doctors have had to face telling their patients they don't have medicines to treat acute infections, congenital heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cardiac conditions and rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Essential medical equipment is also reaching zero stock levels. Medical staff work hard to do the best they can with decreasing resources, but there is a grave risk to the quality of care they can provide.
Today, you can help by making a donation to MAP, allowing us to supply life medicine and equipment to those who urgently need them.
MAP has already responded to a request in January from the Palestinian Ministry of Health as some medicine levels were at a critical level, but to ensure we are able to help again we need your support.
Elham Shmasna, the Primary Health Care Director of Nursing in the West Bank, said: 'People's health is endangered by the lack of medicine and disposable medical equipment. There are significant delays in the patient's recovery and they end up developing other infections and diseases. And the situation is only going to get worse.'
It is shocking and immoral to hold a people to ransom like this, simply for demanding their basic human rights and recognition of statehood. We have written to David Cameron asking him to use his diplomatic power to put pressure on Israel to stop using the threat of withholding taxes as a way of punishing Palestinians.
But today, you can make a personal difference. By making a donation you can help supply essential medicines and medical equipment to those who need them. We could, for example, provide chemotherapy medicines to continue treatment which could save a life.
