ACCESS TO HEALTH IS A HUMAN RIGHT!

• “Even before the patient lying in the ambulance met a human eye, guns and procedures, the Red Crescent paramedic cried out to the soldiers: “His condition is deteriorating!”, and yelled the same again, trying to hurry them up, so that they quickly approve his crossing and begin the procedure of passing him on to the right ambulance.All in vain.They continued, business as usual, with their usual work order – making sure the patient was really the patient, that his accompanying wife and son really are who they say they are, and that no fault be found with the transit permits. The soldiers photographed everyone’s IDs, all unhurriedly and by the book.” As I was told in the past about a 73-year-old cardiac patient who arrived at the checkpoint unconscious: “Does he really think he could just come here, cross and be hospitalized?? 

  MachsomWatch member continued waiting with the critical heart patient in Qalandia until he was on his way to the hospital in Israel:“
  …A young girl-soldier who noticed my concern for the man detained in the ambulance who was on the verge of dying, tried to defend this delay by claiming that “We allow them to cross the checkpoint and get to the hospital”  as if it were  a generous gesture on their part, to pass the dying through… I answered that health care is a right, not a privilege. What you do is to tighten the stranglehold over millions of people. Notification arrived that the paperwork was in order and back-to-back ambulance transfer could begin. Only when the ambulance doors were closed and the vehicle got on its way, the Red Crescent team and I with them breathed, relieved.”

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Qalandiya Checkpoint, October 2022 

Most Israelis cannot begin to imagine the great struggles facing Palestinians trying to get vital medical care in Israel. When it comes to coordination with patients, who are at times moribund, one cannot abide “by the book”.  Such a powerful position requires being able to understand and identify with the Palestinian population. The personality of the Israeli coordinator (on behalf of the Civil Administration) and his worldview are a mandatory step towards fulfilling Israel’s duty to provide Palestinians with basic human rights. Now, with the Civil Administration falling into the hands of extreme-right ministers, who possess a minimal empathy towards Palestinians, this situation is very likely to worsen.