The complexities of the Palestinian healthcare system
A family that came to ‘settle the score’ with doctors following the death of a young woman, the increasing number of births of conjoined twins in Hebron and Mahmoud Abbas's medical project: Much is happening in the health system in the Palestinian Authority.
Six months ago, a woman named Faida al-Atrash died at the government hospital in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. She was young and there was no danger to her life when she entered the hospital, so it was suspected that she died due to medical malpractice. Upon hearing of her surprising death, her family arrived at the hospital to settle the score with the doctors. Violence escalated and this incident was the last straw that broke the camel's back, propelling a public maelstrom in the PA.
On the bright side, Yacoub Shaheen from Bethlehem, the new winner of the Arab Idol singing competition, is a special guy. One of the first things he did immediately after returning home from the show was to go to the hospital to visit children with cancer, where he was welcomed with great excitement.
Conjoined twins are a rare medical case, but somehow and for some inexplicable reason, three pairs of conjoined twins were born in hospitals in Hebron in recent years, the last of whom, born two weeks ago, were joined at the abdomen and chest.
Every year the Palestinian Authority pays an average of $300 million to hospitals in Israel and abroad for medical treatment for Palestinians who need surgery or treatment that cannot be performed in hospitals in the West Bank or Gaza.To cope with this financial drain, the Palestinian Investment Fund established a new, impressive and modern hospital on the outskirts of Ramallah where the same treatments will be provided and complicated operations will be carried out—a step that would leave a lot of money in the possession of the Palestinian Authority.