Rights group warns of medicine shortage in Gaza hospitals

Medication supplies in the Gaza Strip have reached dangerously low levels after the decision was made to stop providing hospital and health centres, on 23 May, 2017 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has said it is “deeply concerned” over what it describes as “the severe lack of medicines and medical consumables” in hospitals in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.

According to PCHR, the conditions of patients in the Gaza Strip could well “deteriorate due to the shortage of medicine and periodic medications”.

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The group urged the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health in Ramallah “to guarantee the free and secure flow of all consignments of medicines and needed medical supplies for the health facilities in the Gaza Strip”.

Moneer al-Bursh, Director General of Pharmacy in the Gaza-based Health Ministry, told PCHR that the blockaded enclave “is going through a rapid collapse in the health system as the Ministry of Health in Ramallah has stopped supplying medicines and medical consumables”.

PCHR is calling upon President Mahmoud Abbas “to immediately intervene” to ensure the supply of “medications and medical consignment into the Gaza Strip”, and urged the national unity government “to take necessary measures” to restock Gaza’s hospitals.

Read: Gaza patients’ lives at risk due to medical shortages says UN/strong>

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