Al Mezan Center observes with much concern the suffering of Gazans owing to the health workers' strikes. The already poor health services have worsened recently in the Gaza Strip and are expected to become worse soon.
On 9 August 2007 the staff of the Shifa Hospital declared a one-day strike, which has developed into a daily partial strike since 20 August 2007 following calls from the Health Workers' Syndicates. A majority of health workers at Gaza's hospitals and a few Primary Care Centers have abided by the Syndicate's call in Gaza, Middle Gaza and Khan Younis districts.
Under the partial strike workers attend to their jobs between 8am and 11am every day. The emergency and nighttime services are excluded. And so is the examinations and admission days at the Palestine Nursing College.
Al Mezan has received a statement signed by health Syndicates calling for a full strike, which is to commence on 26 August 2007 and end on 13 September 2007. The statement was signed by the Syndicates of Doctors, Dentists, Pharmacists and Veterinarians as well as the Civil Servants Coordination Committee.
Al Mezan has also received numerous complaints from citizens who needed healthcare at the Shifa Hospital and did not receive it. The Center's fieldworker visited the Hospital and observed that only a few doctors and nurses were working. In the External Clinic there were only two doctors. In normal times there are fifteen on average. He was told that essential equipment was not working; including the Gastro-scope, which has not been working for a full year now.
In light of this information, and of the expected strikes in the health sector in Gaza, Al Mezan calls the health workers to end their strike and return to their work to evade Gazans grave consequences of a greater lack of healthcare and hospital services. The strike will push the level of health to a lower point at a time when it is already at the verge of collapse. It is mainly the life of the most marginalized sectors of the society; especially children, women and the elderly, that will suffer the consequences of these decisions.
Al Mezan calls for neutralizing the health sector and keeping it outside any political or administrative disparities, and for adopting negotiation as the only tool for solving the problems in this essential sector.
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