There has been unrest in the Gaza strip for a long time now. The conflict has been caused by disagreements between Israelis and the Palestinians over who is the legally recognized owner of the region. Due to the deliberate colonization of the Zionist group – an extremist minority of the Jewish population – the Zionist forces, through intervention of the 1947 UN Partition Plan was allocated part of the Palestine region now known as Gaza after World War 2 (Allen, 2013). Consequentially, this led to displacement of Arabs that initially occupied that region. Besides their replacement, the indigenous Arabs in the subsequent environs never contented with the land that was allocated to them. As result of this the two sides (Israel and Palestine) went to war in 1948 over Gaza (Barghouthi, 2000). This has been the trend over the years. Recently a third party, the Hamas group has however resisted the invasion in the Gaza strip and has since been described as a terrorism group. Due to the prolonged conflict, there has been massive suffering on the residents in Gaza particularly result of socioeconomic decline. Exemplifying this is a lack adequate healthcare provision in infrastructure mostly in efficiency of a car system to reach the injured. The object of this paper is to assess the challenges of the generally overstretched Palestinian healthcare attributed to the conflict in the Gaza region.
Challenges facing the delivery of Care
The quality of car in management of delivering care has been most infected by this conflict. The right to access the highest standard of health is among the most fundamental rights and freedoms in the modern society. Other rights will only be enjoyed by the citizenry after the right to health has been achieved. Due to the increased number of attacks in the region, there has been an increase in the number of victims and thus the number of health centers has not been really on the increase. The hostile status of Israel and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led to the establishment of what has been known as the Oslo Agreements. These agreements are to the effect that the affected refugees would be peaceably treated (Diab & Hamad, 2013). The Health Department of the Civil Administration (HDCA) has been on the forefront in terms of attending to the casualties and the aftermath of the conflict. The other three arms that have been in the response are Non-governmental Organizations, the United Nations and the Private sectors. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has also gone to the extent of creating a Ministry of Health (MoH) (Lambeth, 2011).
Reviewing case stories in terms of timely response, the personnel’s arrival at scenes has been a challenge. 5-30% of nurses do not report to their stations due to insecurities (Nassar & Hamad, 2013). This is because of the unpredictable statuses of war and the hostility of the weaponry in use in the region. The number of personnel is always strained. The major challenges reported were that there lacked the required quality of specialized such as intensive care and operation room nurses, secured transport of nurses.
Significance
Apart from the decline in socioeconomic welfare leading to the depletion of fuel stock and emergency reserves, further threatening the already increasing health risks of the Palestinian population is the deliberate targeting of ambulance crews and medical teams. Obstructing Humanitarian personnel access to the wounded, medical centers, medical teams were deliberately targeted in their attempt to evacuate the wounded and the sick. Feeling this impact the most, is the insufficient personnel and the scarce car equipment in ambulances. An address to the significance of this research is in order to assess the health status in the war-torn Gaza region. This will aid in the scheme to counter the ever rising cases of the need to attend to victims of war. There also is required medical equipment and maintenance scheme in the region.
In terms of the health care system in place at Gaza, MoH and UNRWA PHC centers offer medical services during the hostilities. The services include emergencies and regular clinical services. The services also include follow-up visits to chronic patients. It must be noted however that even with almost an available number of personnel in the region, some of the very worst hit areas may be inaccessible due to the hostilities. (Ram, 2013)
Conclusion
Situated literature Review addressing the extremity of the Gaza Strip conflict reveals the depletion of the response time, safety and volume of car resources in provision of care. From the above submissions, the health status in the war-hit region of Gaza leaves a lot to be desired. The response has not been as timely as it ought to be. The safety is not a guaranteed factor. The quality is also a compromised factor. The thematic health delivery system is more often interfered with by the ever increasing cases of conflict and the systematic and deliberate targeting of ambulances and medical teams all in attempt to hinder access of healthcare to the injured.
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