Saving lives, creating peace Israeli and Palestinian doctors build medical bridges to help children with cancer For two years Yusri Saifi’s infectious smile lit the rooms of young cancer patients at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. “Nobody cared that I was Palestinian,” he says. “They cared that I was a doctor. I was one of the team and had the same opportunities aseverybody else.’’ Until April, he was one of several doctors serving this Jewish hospital in West Jerusalem. That’s when the Palestinian doctor finished his residency and began serving as the lone pediatric oncologist at Augusta Victoria Hospital, a ministry the Lutheran World Federation owns and operates in mostly Arab East Jerusalem.
Saifi’s dream became possible four years ago thanks to the LWF hospital’s work with Hadassah and the Peres Center for Peace, an organization founded in 1996 by Nobel laureate Shimon Peres. The center hopes to raise more than $1 million for training more staff and upgrading facilities. Augusta Victoria raised funds for medical equipment. With funding from the project, Hadassah trained Saifi and a core group of four nurses, a radiologist and a social worker. Advocate Health Care, an ELCA-related institution, sends specialists to train Augusta Victoria’s staff in advanced radiology techniques. This Palestinian-Israeli hospital project also trained Emad Jaouny so he can provide psychological support for families of cancer patients. In the minds of many Palestinians, the C-word is equivalent to death, says Jaouny, director of Augusta Victoria’s psychosocial unit. “We need to be included [from] the first instance ... to help the family of the patient understand what to expect,” he says. “When they know the whole situation it gives them self-confidence.”
Building the LWF hospital’s pediatric oncology unit from the ground up “will be a difficult mission, but I want to face the challenge,” Saifi says. Statistics tell of the need for the unit. Each year at least 150 Palestinian children are diagnosed with cancer—a rate that fits with the international norm. But while recovery rates in Western countries reach 70 percent to 85 percent, most Palestinian children can’t access lifesaving medical care, says Dan Shanit, director of medical health care and biomedical technology at the Peres center. Before Saifi began the pediatric cancer ward at Augusta Victoria, Palestinian children had to seek treatment at Israeli hospitals or go to Egypt or Jordan. Shanit says the cost of treatment—$75,000 or higher—is beyond the majority of Palestinians, who earn an average of $250 per month and lack medical insurance. The Palestinian Authority’s $25,000 per child medical allocation only goes so far, he adds. While the challenge is great, Saifi and other Augusta Victoria staff have Hadassah’s full support, says Michael Weintraub, the Israeli hospital’s director of pediatric oncology. “This is not something you build in one day; it can take three to five years before the unit will be independent,” Weintraub says. The partners also collaborate during monthly meetings of “Pediatricians Across the Mount”—where staff from three other Palestinian hospitals on the Mount of Olives and Hadassah’s Mount Scopus branch exchange ideas and information. “Hopefully there will be long-term collaboration,” Weintraub says. “This is humanitarian work and there is a need for it in our nation and by our people,” Saifi says. “There is nothing that can stand in the way of this mission. I don’t see any reason that will stop us from [helping] a Palestinian child receive treatment.” Not just niceties When Israeli and Palestinian medical staff work together, it fosters equity and dispels fear and anger, says Tawfiq Nasser, CEO of Augusta Victoria. Laboring together to save lives, both Palestinian and Israeli, they see each other without interference from checkpoints, separation barriers and terrorist or military attacks, he says. It also makes practical sense, Nasser says, adding, “The Israeli medical system is much more advanced and we can learn a lot from them. ... They can learn on the pathology side when we present [our medical] cases.” And Israeli doctors realize a bit of the reality of Palestinian life when their Palestinian colleagues can’t attend a meeting because of difficulties at checkpoints, closures or longer routes due to the separation barrier, Nasser says. “None of these programs work if there isn’t a basic understanding of the basic rights of both sides,” he says. “It can’t be just niceties. [Israeli staff] have a fundamental belief that Palestinians have rights to sovereignty and dignity and the Palestinian [staff] believes Israel has the right to exist in dignity.” “Politics puts a big gap between people ... projects like this break these gaps,” says Ahmed A-Halaweh, director of community health nursing at Augusta Victoria. “This has made us look toward one another from a human point of view. It’s important for [Israelis] to realize what is going on in the West Bank and Gaza.” Once they’ve gotten to know each other, Israeli and Palestinian doctors have even called each other to consult in emergency cases. “These connections open doors,” says Jacob Assaf, Hadassah’s director of emergency medicine, whose relationship with Nasser has grown into such a friendship that the two not only telephone each other for professional reasons but meet for coffee or dinner. |
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