THE AUGUSTA Victoria Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem announced on Sunday that it would no longer accept new patients, owing to a ‘crisis level’ financial situation due to excessive delays in payments from the Palestinian Authority (PA), amounting to some $41.78 million.
The private hospital, which receives patients referred by the Palestinian Ministry of Health from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, previously warned of the mounting financial crisis last November in a joint statement with East Jerusalem hospital al-Maqasid, that alleged the PA owed the two hospitals a cumulative $62.5 million at the time.
The statement warned that if the PA continued to delay payments, both hospitals would not be able to buy the medical equipment they urgently needed, and consequently would not be able to receive patients who needed surgeries.
Now, more than five months later, Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) declared its has been forced to turn away new patients. A press release stated that debt from the PA owed to the hospital reached 150 million shekels (approximately $41.78 million) as of April 30, 2017, which was equivalent to one entire year of medical services for patients from the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank referred by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
‘This crisis becomes more acute every day that passes. Every day, more and more patients are referred to AVH with little or no payments from the PA,’ the statement said, adding that the PA’s debts to the hospital increase by an average of 14 million shekels ($3.9 million) a month.
AVH said that 23 million shekels ($6.41 million) were needed immediately ‘just to cover the costs of medications vital to the treatment of children, women and men relying on the cancer and kidney services of AVH.”
‘It is very unfortunate the AVH management is compelled for financial reasons not to accept patients, particularly new patients, who require expensive medications unavailable at the hospital for chemotherapy and other treatments,’ the statement continued.
AVH warned that medications at its pharmacies were ‘nearly depleted, dipping below the red line set by management to be the minimum amount needed for the efficient and safe medical performance of a hospital of the size and type of AVH.’
The Palestinian Authority has faced crippling financial crises with regularity since its inception in 1994, due in large part to its lack of control over resources and trade because of Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territory, serious structural deficiencies in the ways the PA collects and allocates funds, and decreases in donor funding.
In January, more than 200 employees of a private hospital in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron went on strike in protest at not having received salaries for three months due to outstanding debts from PA amounting to millions of dollars. The Palestinian Ministry of Health refers thousands of patients who have government insurance to private hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem when public hospitals cannot provide advanced medical care, such as surgery or cancer treatment.
• For the 21st day in a row, about 1800 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are continuing the ‘Battle of Freedom and Dignity’ hunger strike amid strict repressive measures by the Israeli authorities to break their strike. Jamil Sa’ada, lawyer of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission, told the Voice of Palestine that the Israeli prison authorities have threatened to force-feed the hunger strikers and called in doctors for this task. The Israeli Medical Association earlier announced it would not abide by Israel’s decision to force-feed the hunger strikers.
Sa’ada pointed out that the hunger striking prisoners had not received dietary supplements since they entered the strike on April 17. He added that the Israel Prison Service had tightened their repressive measures against the hunger strikers through solitary confinement, transfer of prisoners between prisons, and denial of family visits.
The hunger strikers are calling for better access to medical care; increased visit duration from 45 to 90 minutes; removal of glass barriers during family visits; improved detention conditions including easing restrictions on the entry of books, clothing, food and other gifts from family members; installing phones to enable prisoners to communicate with their families and an end to the policy of administrative detention.
• Israeli forces suppressed a march last Saturday evening that was staged in support of the mass hunger strike underway in Israeli prisons. One Palestinian was shot and injured with a rubber-coated steel bullet and eight others suffered from tear gas inhalation.
Around 200 Palestinians marched from a sit-in tent in the village of Beita towards the main junction, where clashes erupted with Israeli forces that lasted for about two hours. Locals said that Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs, and tear gas canisters at Palestinian protesters who responded by throwing rocks and empty bottles.
The Palestinian Red Crescent in Nablus said it provided medical care to the eight Palestinians who suffocated from tear gas, and to the protester who was shot. An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they were looking into reports of the clashes.
Palestinian leaders declared a ‘week of rage’ on Saturday, in response to reports that Israeli authorities have explored the option of importing foreign doctors into Israel to force feed hunger-striking prisoners, as Israeli doctors have aligned themselves with international medical ethics and have so far refused to impose force feeding against hunger-striking prisoners, despite a recent Israeli Supreme Court decision that decided the practice was constitutional.
The hunger strikers entered their 21st day without food on Sunday, in protest at the torture, ill treatment, and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners at the hands of Israeli authorities, as well as Israel’s widespread use of administrative detention – internment without trial or charges – which is only permitted under international law in extremely limited circumstances.
Since the strike began, solidarity demonstrations have been a daily occurrence in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israel, and abroad. Scores of Palestinians were injured by Israeli army crowd control methods after protests erupted into clashes across the West Bank on Friday.
• The National Resistance Brigades, the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), conducted a joint exercise with the Abdel Qader al-Husseini Brigades, a group affiliated with Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, at a military training site in Gaza Strip on Sunday.
The manoeuvre was conducted to display new artillery and missile tactics, and to ‘affirm the unity of resistance brigades on the battle field against enemy,’ spokesperson for the National Resistance Brigades Abu Khalid said in a statement.
‘We are sending a message to the enemy that we remain persistent and are continuing preparations to follow in the footsteps of our martyrs on the path of resistance and struggle,’ Abu Khalid said.
He added that the National Resistance Brigades was determined to develop its military capabilities to protect the rights of the Palestinian people, and prisoners in particular, ‘in the face of the Israeli occupation’s aggression.’
Abu Khalid also extended a greeting to the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who entered the 21st day on a hunger strike in Israeli prisons on Sunday, and stressed the brigades’ support for the prisoners’ cause, vowing that it ‘would not hesitate to break them free through all available means.’