Gaza: health situation worsening for past year

Palestinian Territories | 12 January 2009

While the problems in the Palestinian healthcare sector have become even more striking as the present conflict with Israel intensifies and violence achieves crisis levels, these persistent problems predate the current episodes of extreme violence.

For Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the situation in Gaza has been worsening for nearly a year, the consequence of multiple political and economic factors.

Years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and violence; the economic embargo, which was tightened in January 2008 (specifically with regard to electricity and fuel supplies); the inter-Palestinian clashes in the summer of 2007, which targeted hospitals; the forced strikes among hospital staff; attacks on humanitarian aid workers; and the blocking of access to medical care have all helped, over time, to sap and weaken the health system in the Palestinian Territories.

Hospitals have experienced a host of maintenance and operating problems, health services have been limited, medical supplies and medications have been in short supply and access to specialized care outside the Gaza Strip has been restricted. Similarly, while supply problems are not new, the current surges of violence have increased the pressure on already-weakened health facilities.

In addition to the problems resulting from the economic blockade, internal conflicts have arisen over the last year. With two competing health authorities (one under the Palestinian Authority, and the other, Hamas), Palestinian health professionals have been squeezed by conflicting interests. They face contradictory instructions, blocked access to healthcare, difficulties at the workplace based on political affiliations and reduced quality of care.

The “general strike” called by the Palestinian health workers’ union on Aug. 30, 2008 (which resulted in 50 to 80 per cent levels of absenteeism among critical hospital employees) thus had catastrophic consequences for access to care for the 1.6 million residents of the Gaza Strip, already profoundly affected by the years of conflict.