Gaza: 2,500 patients 'in danger' with no access to medical care

The lives of some 2,500 Palestinian patients are currently “in danger” after the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Ramallah stopped the transfer of patients from Gaza for treatment abroad, the Gaza Strip’s Ministry of Health warned yesterday.

“Treatment requests of 2,500 patients are still suspended at the Referral Abroad Department (RAD) in Gaza awaiting approvals,” the ministry’s spokesman, Ashraf Al-Qidra, said in a statement.

Patients who have been suffering from “arbitrary measures” adopted by the PA, he added, had called for an international intervention.

Read: PA forces 6,145 civil servants in Gaza into retirement

In addition to halting the transfer of Gaza patients abroad last Friday, the ministry announced that the measures included “stopping the supply of medicine and medical equipment to the hospitals in Gaza, the continuation of the electricity crisis, and the exacerbation of the social problems caused by both the siege and the recent decisions of the Ramallah-based government.”

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In response, the PA’s Ministry of Health in the occupied West Bank denied the accusations stressing that “the system and mechanism of medical referrals for patients in the Gaza Strip have not been modified or changed”.