The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150703   Message #3633628
Posted By: Jim Carroll
16-Jun-14 - 01:36 PM
Thread Name: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
"it's called benevolence"
No - it's called business
Jim Carroll

Palestinian medical tourism[edit]
A significant number of residents of the Palestinian territories seek medical treatment in Israel, often for sophisticated tests or treatments not available at Palestinian hospitals. Their treatment is paid for under a financial arrangement with the Palestinian Authority, or in some cases, at their own expense. Medical treatment for Gaza Strip residents is paid for by the Palestinian Authority or organizations such as the Peres Center for Peace.[29]
Palestinians who apply for medical treatment in Israel must obtain a humanitarian entry permit from Israel, of which thousands are issued annually. In January 2009, during the Gaza War, the Palestinian Authority temporarily canceled financial coverage for all medical care for Palestinians in Israeli hospitals, including coverage for the chronically ill and those in need of complex care not available in the Palestinian territories.Palestinian officials stated that they wished to send the patients to neighboring Arab countries instead, accusing Israeli officials of using Palestinian patients, some injured in Israeli airstrikes, in PR campaigns to improve Israel's tarnished image during the Gaza War.[30][31] In 2012, The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health reported spending approximately $42 million in 2011 to finance medical coverage of Palestinians in Israeli hospitals and the Arab World.[32] Arab citizens of Israel belong to the same health care system as that of all other citizens of the country.
File:Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip is giving birth to quadruplets in a caesarean surgery in Israel Hospital.JPG
Gaza Strip resident giving birth to quadruplets at an Israeli hospital, 2008
The quality of medical care in Israel is significantly better than anywhere in the West Bank and Gaza. Irwin Mansdorf, a member of Task Force on Medical and Public Health Issues, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East wrote about routine care that Palestinians continue to receive in Israeli hospitals and from Israeli physicians.[33]
Saving Children, established by the Peres Peace Center, enables hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical care, in particular cardiac surgery, from Israeli surgeons.[34]
"Save A Child's Heart" is a program in which any child with heart problems can receive free medical attention and surgery from select doctors and hospitals within Israel. From 1996 to 2007, 4,591 children had been examined world wide, of the 1848 children treated 828 (45%) were Palestinian.[35]