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March 19, 2012

Health Access Under Occupation

The WHO oPt Head of Office, Mr. Tony Laurance, presented on Health Access under Occupation at the Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance Second Annual Conference, held at the American University of Beirut in  Lebanon, March 5-6, 2012. The Alliance is a collective of public health researchers from the AUB Faculty of Health Science, Birzeit University Institute of Community and Public Health, and the British public health journal, The Lancet, that has focused efforts on bringing Palestinian public health issues into the mainstream science discourse. The conference presentations were based on research into the public health of Palestinians in the occupied territory as well as in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Mr. Laurance’s presentation was based on the WHO oPt Advocacy team’s abstract entitled “Right to Health: Barriers to Palestinian Health Access” one of 22 accepted for oral presentation. The presentation detailed the rigid, discriminatory permit regime which can deny patients and health personnel access to referral hospitals in Jerusalem in addition to the physical barriers of checkpoints and separation wall.

An abstract submitted by Dr. Katja Schemionek, Public Health Officer at WHO oPt (2007-2011) and the Palestinian Ministry of Health, on non communicable diseases was presented in poster form, detailing WHO-MoH scaled-up efforts at prevention and control.

March 19, 2012

Establishing a Palestinian National Institute of Public Health

For the past two years there has been a dialogue between the Palestinian Ministry of Health, WHO, universities in Palestine and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health about establishing a Palestinian National Institute of Public Health (PNIPH) as a key institution for the Palestinian state.

Project preparation was led by the WHO office for West Bank and Gaza in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health with financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This phase included a feasibility study by Dr Salman Rawaf of the WHO Collaborating Centre at Imperial College, workshops in Ramallah and a number of formal and informal discussions between representatives of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Palestinian universities, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, UNWRA, the Norwegian Representative’s Office to the Palestinian Authorities, WHO, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, USAID and other donors, international and local agencies, and other Palestinian key institutions. Discussions focused on how to improve the public health system in the occupied Palestinian territory. An Institute of Public Health was seen as a way to strengthen data collection and analysis and to support policy development and decision making based on evidence.

A formal proposal for a two-year project to establish the Institute was subsequently developed by WHO and endorsed by the Palestinian Authority. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to fund it. A Memorandum of Understanding between the Prime Minister for the Palestinian Authority, WHO, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs was signed in Oslo on  November 24, 2011 in which the parties agreed to work together to establish the Institute. The two-year project period formally started March 1, 2012.
Read more about the Public Health Institute Project
Vacancy notice: National Professional Officer (Public Health)/Jerusalem

March 9, 2012

WHO report on Referral of Patients from the Gaza Strip, February 2012 published

 

 In summary

• In February, 91.5% (701 patients) of all patient applications for permits were approved, an improvement over the 2011 average of 90%. However, 10 patients (1.3%) who applied for a permit to cross Erez checkpoint were denied a permit during February, and 55 patients, including 15 children (7.2%), did not receive a response to their permit request before the date of their hospital appointment.
• The main reasons for patient referrals during February were for treatment in the following subspecialties: cardiovascular (13.8%), oncology (12.7%), ophthalmology (7.3%), orthopedics (5.9%) and neurosurgery (5.5 %). The cases represent 45% of the total referrals and 51% of the total estimated cost for referrals for the month of $3.2 million.
• A 23-year-old male patient with a valid Israeli issued permit was detained at Erez crossing.

 Read the full report

To receive the report monthly by e-mail, write to: advocacy@who-health.org

 

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