This week the non-governmental humanitarian organization (NGO) CARE delivered $129,951 in new medical equipment to the Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Ramallah. The equipment included a blood gas analyzer, a blood pressure machine, an electrocardiograph, and a vital signs monitor. A second delivery of equipment is scheduled next month and shipments of medical disposables (latex gloves etc..) will continue until September 2008. This is good news for for the West Bank and Gaza, since Sheikh Zayed Hospital is the only emergency facility and serves 270,000 Palestinians.
What is less known is that the all the equipment was paid for by US taxpayers under US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emergency Medical Assistance Program. The US program provides $30 million to prevent medical equipment shortages in Palestinian health services in the West Bank and Gaza. In fact, since 1993 the United States has given more than $1.7 billion in development programs to the West Bank and Gaza.
Now if only the US’ public diplomacy folks could make something of this…
Recently IRIN reported that the main office of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) was damaged in an Israeli airstrike. PMRS has photos of the damage on their website. The strike was in retaliation for more than 70 Palestinian rockets fired into Israel, one of which landed on the grounds of a local Israeli hospital. Neither the Palestinian nor Israeli attacks was officially targeting health facilities.
Why am I showing you this? Because damage to the health infrastructure is a primary cause of indirect morbidity and mortality during wartime. Despite myths to the contrary, dead bodies are not the catalysts of epidemics. Rather, it is the loss of health infrastructures (hospitals, clinics, etc…). When a region loses its health infrastructure it is unable to combat diseases endemic in the area, which quickly flare up. That is, in peacetime local health infrastructures keep local diseases in check through treatment and public health programs. When that infrastructure is destroyed, this check is removed and diseases spread rapidly.