Groups of Irish health workers are drawing up plans to travel to Gaza when a ceasefire is agreed in order to provide training as other supports as the region looks to rebuild its health services in the wake of the devastating bombardment by Israel.
Irish Healthcare Workers for Palestine and the Gaza Pediatric Care Initiative are working with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation on proposals they hope the Irish Government will back for staff working in a range of areas, particularly paediatrics, to travel to Gaza both to provide frontline care to those impacted by the war and training to local medical staff attempting to reformulate the region’s badly damaged systems.
INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said the organisation was working on the development of a plan to be submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs which, she hopes, will receive funding and other practical supports.
The hope, she said, is that the Government and HSE will facilitate leave for staff prepared to travel as they it did for Filipino nurses who wanted to return home for a period in 2013 in the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan.
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“Nurses and other healthcare professionals here are trained to a very high standard and a large part of the intention here would be for our people to train their trainers,” she said.
Helen Flynn, a paediatric nurse based at Children’s Health Ireland, Crumlin said members of Gaza Pediatric Care Initiative, a small group comprised of consultants, other doctors and nurses, is hoping the initiative will include an Irish centre where a range of supports can be provided.
“We had been hoping to establish it in Rafah because it did appear that was going to remain a relatively safe area but that doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case now. We are looking at locations outside of Gaza, in Egypt, Cyprus and Jordan but that process is still ongoing.”
The scale of the challenge that awaits was outlined by the Palestinian ambassador to Ireland Dr Jilian Abdalmajid as she addressed the INMO conference at Croke Park on Thursday.
“The figures show the true scale of disaster caused by this vicious war,” she told delegates.
“Israeli bombardments have killed more than 490 healthcare personnel while carrying of their humanitarian missions and 67 civil defence personnel were killed while on duty.
“Thirty-one out of 36 hospitals in Gaza have sustained damage currently 24 hospitals are completely out of service. More than 150 health facilities and 130 ambulances have also been damaged.
“A shortage of strong pain relief medications, steroid creams and antibiotics are hampering the treatment of simple diseases and forcing children to endure limb salvage surgeries without adequate pain relief,” she said.
While injuries sustained as a result of the bombing, she said, are a huge issue but so too are the needs of members of the population with illnesses unrelated to the conflict, like cancers, or ordinary healthcare concerns, like pregnant women and young children, she said.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha told Dr Abdalmajid in response that she believed Ireland would “help you rebuild your country, particularly its healthcare system”.
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