Yesterday I went to the dialysis unit in the hospital to visit the children and make balloon animals for them. The children travel from places throughout the West Bank (aka Occupied Palestinian Territories) leaving early in the morning in hospital vans sent to pick them up and bring them through the various checkpoints into Jerusalem. The dialysis lasts for 4 hours and then they travel back home. This is a whole day process basically and has to be done 3 days a week. Of course, there is no way that any of these children could live without kidney dialysis. So, no matter how miserable the process may be, all the mothers, the fathers and children are so grateful and thankful for this wonderful service they are able to receive at the Lutheran funded hospital. There is no other place they can receive this treatment in the West Bank. The hospital also provides other medical services for Palestinian adults including some patients who are lucky enough to get permission to leave Gaza in order to receive needed medical treatments. As the situation in Gaza deteriorates, it has become impossible for their hospitals to perform all types of medical procedures, so there is a great need to be able to move patients with serious conditions like cancer and those needing heart surgery into Israel for lifesaving medical treatment. Staying here at the guesthouse are mostly volunteers, including a retired heart surgeon from New Zealand who gives up 6 weeks of his life every year to come here to perform heart surgery in an Islamic Charity hospital just down the hill from here. He told me that recently due to efforts by many human rights groups including Amnesty International, they were able to get 13 patients out of Gaza for heart surgery. Many patients will die though while they wait trying to get the permits to leave Gaza and enter Israel for treatment. Life is precious...the people here know all too well that it can be very tenuous and every day is a gift from God. Access to health care should be a basic human right no matter where you live in the world. As Bono says in one of his songs, " Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die."
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Giving Thanks for Life
Yesterday I went to the dialysis unit in the hospital to visit the children and make balloon animals for them. The children travel from places throughout the West Bank (aka Occupied Palestinian Territories) leaving early in the morning in hospital vans sent to pick them up and bring them through the various checkpoints into Jerusalem. The dialysis lasts for 4 hours and then they travel back home. This is a whole day process basically and has to be done 3 days a week. Of course, there is no way that any of these children could live without kidney dialysis. So, no matter how miserable the process may be, all the mothers, the fathers and children are so grateful and thankful for this wonderful service they are able to receive at the Lutheran funded hospital. There is no other place they can receive this treatment in the West Bank. The hospital also provides other medical services for Palestinian adults including some patients who are lucky enough to get permission to leave Gaza in order to receive needed medical treatments. As the situation in Gaza deteriorates, it has become impossible for their hospitals to perform all types of medical procedures, so there is a great need to be able to move patients with serious conditions like cancer and those needing heart surgery into Israel for lifesaving medical treatment. Staying here at the guesthouse are mostly volunteers, including a retired heart surgeon from New Zealand who gives up 6 weeks of his life every year to come here to perform heart surgery in an Islamic Charity hospital just down the hill from here. He told me that recently due to efforts by many human rights groups including Amnesty International, they were able to get 13 patients out of Gaza for heart surgery. Many patients will die though while they wait trying to get the permits to leave Gaza and enter Israel for treatment. Life is precious...the people here know all too well that it can be very tenuous and every day is a gift from God. Access to health care should be a basic human right no matter where you live in the world. As Bono says in one of his songs, " Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die."
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3 comments:
Thanks for being there for all of us and for keeping us informed. God bless the children. Gary B.
Hi Dana,
Glad to hear your first few days are going so well. You continue to be in our loving thoughts and prayers!
God Bless You Dana! Your UCC family is praying for you. Love, Pam
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