In Beit Jala, hospital admits only emergency patients — Al Jazeera
In Beit Jala in the occupied West Bank, a public hospital is admitting only emergency cases due to a lack of funding and medicines, as well as reduced working hours for staff. Medical workers report interrupted chemotherapy courses, difficulties for patients in accessing treatment and postponed surgeries, Al Jazeera reports.
Beit Jala Hospital is the only public hospital in the Bethlehem district, home to about 320,000 people. For the southern West Bank, it is also the only public facility providing care to cancer patients and those requiring dialysis. People come here from the Bethlehem and Hebron districts, parts of occupied East Jerusalem and sometimes from Jericho.
Shortage of medicines and staff
Public-sector employees receive half their salaries, so some of them work two to three days a week. According to Iyad Dari, a doctor in the dialysis department, the problem is not a lack of medical personnel, but that workers cannot afford a full work schedule. As a result, the hospital is focusing on emergency cases.
Oncologist Hisham Amleh said the hospital previously had about 90% of key medicines, primarily for chemotherapy. Now, he said, immunotherapy and biological medicines are lacking. Khulud Dweib, head of the pharmacy department, reported that the ministry recently received eight previously unavailable cancer medicines and four biological medicines. In her assessment, these stocks may last for one and a half to two months, but many other medicines are still unavailable.
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Internist Yousef Ojra linked the crisis to a lack of funds at the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, which cannot pay suppliers. The report also notes that the Palestinian Authority's financial situation has worsened due to cuts in international aid and disruptions in Israel's transfer of tax revenues.
The road to treatment
Patients' access to the hospital is complicated by checkpoints and road closures. Dari spoke about a dialysis patient from Nahalin who spent four to five hours at a checkpoint, then took a detour and arrived at the department at 16:00 instead of for a morning appointment. The cost of such a trip, he said, rose from about 10 to more than 100 shekels.
Khaldoun Atwan, head of the day oncology department, noted that some patients need treatment both in Beit Jala and at Augusta Victoria Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem. At the same time, patients no longer have guarantees of receiving permission to enter Jerusalem. According to Atwan, missed treatment sessions can cause dangerous complications.
Against the backdrop of medicine shortages and understaffing, the queue for surgeries is growing. Patient Sayed Ayad, who has a severe ankle fracture, said he waited three weeks for surgery because more serious cases were given priority.
