A delegation of 30 doctors, nurses and graduate nursing students from the Palestinian Authority (PA) arrived last month to the Rambam Health Care Campus for a day-long seminar on oncological care. The goal of participants, who came from Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron and other West Bank cities, was to learn about new techniques for treating children’s oncological diseases.
 

The Palestinian delegation members and their hosts  pioter fliter©

During its visit, the delegation toured the Meyer Children’s Hospital’s Department of Oncological Hematology of under the direction of Prof Miriam Ben-Arush, and attended lectures on subjects including pediatric cancer treatments, thalassemia disease, bone marrow transplants for children, supportive treatment and psychological perspectives on coping with pediatric cancer. 

According to Prof Ben-Arush, medical care for sick children at Palestinian Authority hospitals is not at the same level as that in Israel. “For this reason, the connection between medical centers in Israel and the PA is important,” she said. “We must offer them the medical tools and enrich them with knowledge they can apply in hospitals there.”
Yazed Falah, who oversees the coordination between the PA and Rambam said that the seminar was part of the ongoing cooperation between Rambam and the Palestinian Authority. “We initiate activities and seminars like this all the time because we are obligated, on a human level, to help sick people regardless of politics.”

Delegation member Dr Sumia Saij, instructor at Al-Kuds University in Tubas, spoke on the reality in PA hospitals. “In many cases, we don’t have the qualification, the budget or the tools to give medical care to patients who arrive at the hospital. Seminars like this allow us return to our hospitals with the knowledge we have received here. This helps reduce the gaps between hospitals in the PA and the more advanced facilities in Israel.”
Rambam treats a variety of patients who arrive every day from the Palestinian Authority. Many of these patients come on a permanent basis for ongoing treatments. Weekly, some 50 children come to Rambam from the PA to receive oncological and hematological treatments.