Five-year plan to develop Palestinian hospitals
Palestine, Economics, 6/22/1998

The Palestinian government has prepared a five-year plan to improve all hospitals in its areas at an estimated cost of US $ 250 million.

Palestinian Minister of Health Dr. Riyadh Za'noun said that a sum of US $150 million is needed to improve the buildings themselves while the remaining $100 million will go for acquiring new equipment. He said his ministry has already prepared a blueprint of the five-year plan and hopes to present it to President Arafat at the start of next year.

Sources in the health ministry stressed that 30 years of Israeli military occupation have left local hospitals without even a proper infrastructure, and the past four years of Palestinian government were not enough to solve all the problems that accumulated over three decades. "We received ruined hospitals with poor equipment and a very low level of services," said Dr. Faisal Abu Shahla, director general of hospitals department in the Health Ministry.

He added that the Palestinian government's plan to develop the health sector in the Palestinian territories depends on how generous foreign support is for the Palestinian government. "We have the intention and the capacity to improve all the hospitals in our areas but we badly need financial support to do so and on this we count on a number of the donor countries," he said.

Dr. Za'noun, meanwhile, said the plan to develop the hospitals forms some 40 percent of his ministry's total budget, noting that health conditions in the Palestinian territories have been under-developed throughout the years of Israeli military occupation. "Our goal is to raise the level of health services that hospitals in the Palestinian territories provide to the Palestinians," he said.

Speaking before a group of doctors who attended a workshop in Gaza on Sunday, Za'noun said the running budget of his ministry is not part of the development cost included in the plan. "Our running budget is close to US $100 million, of which $65 million come from the donor countries," he said. He added that the newly-planned European Hospital in Gaza would cost around US $43 million, of which $12 million will come from the European Community while Japan will provide medical equipment worth US $16 million.

Other projects on the ministry's agenda include Italian aid worth $14 million and another one sponsored by Britain at a cost of $5.3 million. The European Hospital, said Za'noun, will first be run by a team of foreign experts who will in the first three years train a Palestinian team to run the hospital, which will be placed thoroughly under Palestinian control in its third year.

Previous Stories:
  World Bank presents $90 million donation to Palestine   (6/2/1998)
  Comprehensive report on Palestinian economy   (5/29/1998)
  Palestinian children suffer psychological problems due to violence and torture   (4/10/1998)

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