Forced to climb over the apartheid wall for open heart surgery
Latest News, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, October 1st, 2006
Abed El-Fatah, a refugee living Qalqilya city, was forced to climb over the apartheid wall around Jerusalem after Occupation forces refused to allow him to enter in order to receive critical surgery.
Abed suffers from closed heart veins, and was referred from Qalqilya Hospital in the north West Bank to Al-Makassed Charity Hospital in Jerusalem for critical open heart surgery. Seventy five percent of this expensive surgery is covered by UNRWA as Abed is a refugee.
Since the isolation of Jerusalem behind the Apartheid Wall, entering the city is impossible without a permit from the occupation forces. Abed sent his medical file with the application for a permit through the Red Crescent. A week after applying for the permit he received a paper telling him that his application was refused for “security reasons.”
Abed, whose medical case was critical, could not wait for approval from Occupation. He took the decision to enter Jerusalem by jumping over the Apartheid Wall in Abu diss aria.
Abed said:
“Although my case is critical and the reality is that I need an ambulance to reach the hospital, I had to jump over the wall to make my surgery”.
Doctors from Al-Makassed Charity Hospital were shocked to see him in the hospital and more shocked after he told them his story.
However, Abed's story is far from unique. The 181 km apartheid wall surrounds Jerusalem. Around 300 employees of Al-Makassed Charity Hospital need permits to get to work. That number does not include the thousands of patients who are now blocked from reaching the hospital by the wall. This hospital, and others in Jerusalem, was specifically created to serve refugees and it is one of the few hospitals that is well prepared for critical cases.
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| Above: The Walls isolating Jerusalem |
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