Palestine Update : Doctors Worldwide (Turkey) to send medical relief team to Gaza

Doctors Worldwide (Turkey) is going to send a medical relief team to Gaza soon; the team will consist of doctors specialised in general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics, plastics and reconstructive surgery, paediatric surgery and cardiac surgery.

Currently, hospitals in Gaza are not able to provide full care to their residents because of electricity cuts and ambulances can not transport all the wounded to the hospitals because of absence of fuel. As a result of chloride shortage, drinking safe and clean water is almost impossible, which is likely to cause infectious disease outbreaks.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is at its worst since Israel seized the territory in 1967: 127 civil, mostly children, and women have been killed or left to death and more than 300 people was injured in the last attack. 700 000 Gazans, nearly the half the territory's population, are compelled to migrate to Egypt in order to supply the necessities of life. More than 80 per cent of Gaza's 1.5 million population are now dependent on food aid and unemployment has risen up to 40 per cent.

Previously, Doctors Worldwide (Turkey) has provided medical care to Palestinian patients directly and indirectly: 67 children with cleft lip and palate and with burn squeals have been operated by the organisation medical team in El Halil Region in the West Bank; a traumatology unite has been constructed in Khan Younus Nacer Hospital in the Gaza Strip last year, which was equipped –in cooperation with Light House Association- with Computed Tomography, Ultrasound and X- Ray machines. Since February 2007 132 840 patients have received care in the traumatology centre.

Additionally, Doctors Worldwide (Turkey) has sponsored the attendance of 6 Palestinian doctors to the Traumatology and Resuscitation Course in Istanbul.

Doctors Worldwide is also setting up a new medical relief team to Al Halil Region of Palestine to operate children with hypospadias and with cleft lip and palate in May, 2008.