- Email: [email protected]
ARREST OF THREE HEALTH WORKERS
898
Concerning control of hookworm today, the key strategies of the Rockefeller Foundation’s campaign to eradicate disease by sanitation and health education are still not cost-effective. A major advance, however, is the availability of inexpensive, non-toxic, single-dose, broad-spectrum anthelmintics. Thus it became evident at this conference that Ascaris and Trichuris could be controlled with The basic strategy to hookworm. simultaneously this was accomplish goal developed in the hookworm of the 1920s when it was realised that treatment campaigns toward most those targeted heavily infected-rural schoolchildren-would drastically reduce hookworm
disease. A similar approach to the control of schistosomiasis by use of a single-dose, broad-spectrum antitrematode drug was devised during the 1970s and has now been adopted by WHO. Thus, at intervals of one to several years, treatment with low-cost anthelmintics directed toward those with heavy worm burdens should maintain intensity of infection below the threshold of disease. This should result in a pronounced reduction in morbidity and in improvement in the nutritional status of hundreds of millions of people, especially children.
Round the World
have changed their way of working in order to deal with the medical burden it has generated. The committees have established mobile units which travel to camps and villages as needed. They are staffed by doctors and nurses who work on a voluntary basis, in addition to their paid employment. 375 doctors at present work in the scheme-a third of the total number of doctors in the West Bank and Gaza. Since last December these units have treated over 34 500 people. Patients are not charged and drugs are provided free. This work has recently expanded to include health education and training in preventive medicine and first aid for women in the camps and villages, marking recognition of how women are shouldering major responsibility for health and welfare in these areas. According to Dr Mustapha Baraghouthi, chairman of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, many teams have been intimidated as they have gone about their work. In particular, a number of doctors and nurses have been detained for violating a 1913 Ottoman Empire law which states that no one person in the same place can do the same work without permission. In August the Union appealed to doctors overseas to help secure the release of those of its members who have been arrested: Dr Zakariya Agha, head of the Medical Association of Gaza, Dr Mohammad Shaker Al Abboushi, Dr Jamil Qumsieh, Dr Hanna Rashmawi, Dr Said Mustapha Darras, and a paediatric nurse, Miss Hanan Bannoura. The Union declares that they are being detained without charge or trial.
From
our
Correspondents
Israel INJURIES CAUSED BY HIGH-VELOCITY BULLETS THE director of A1 Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and head of the department of trauma and orthopaedics, Dr Rustom Nammari, is much concerned by the use of high-velocity bullets for riot control in the occupied territories. Because of the damage they have caused in many patients admitted to his hospital, he has appealed to the international medical community to put pressure on the Israeli Government to prohibit their use. Al Makassed Hospital is a charitable institution. With 200 beds it is the largest and most specialised hospital in the West Bank and Gaza. Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in December last year, the hospital has treated over 2000 patients with injuries related to riot control. According to Dr Nammari, 300 of these patients had "very serious injuries". Most of them have been young males between the ages of 10 and 25 who were and are being treated for compound and comminuted fractures, many inflicted at close range. Wajeeh Fraraji, a 16-year-old boy from Daheesha camp, near Bethlehem, now being treated at Al Makassed, was captured on June 6 this year after a stone-throwing incident. He alleges that he was first beaten, then forced to stand against a wall, where he was shot in the thigh by his captors. The lower third of the femur was shattered and the common peroneal nerve severed. As a result of the uprising, the hospital is facing an unprecedented influx of similar injuries, and an increase in traumatic paraplegia and severe pelvic and abdominal injuries, requiring long and complicated treatment and rehabilitation. Dr Nammari told me that he was aware of no other Government which used high-velocity bullets against rioters. Because these bullets travel at around 1km/s and fragment on impact, they can shatter bone and cause great damage to muscles, nerves, and vessels, which is difficult to treat and heal. Dr Nammari is also disturbed about the type of tear gas used in riot control in the occupied territories. As well as causing severe respiratory distress this particular gas, he said, is noted for causing fits and it can also lead to first-degree chemical bums when the skin is washed. Its effect persists to some degree as long as the contaminated clothes are worn. The hospital staff are handicapped by the lack of properly equipped rehabilitation units. A visiting medical team from Sweden has offered to establish a rehabilitation centre near Ramallah. Plans for this project were submitted to the military authorities for approval, but so far no reply has been received. Dr Nammari appealed to doctors overseas to put pressure on the Israeli Government to allow the project to go ahead. In the occupied territories access to hospital is difficult; and some camps have no resident doctor to provide basic medical care. A number of medical relief committees have been established and they have become increasingly important since the uprising, and they
The Rockefeller Foundation, New York City, NY, USA
107 Feltham Hill Road, Ashford, Middlesex TW15 1HH
KENNETH S. WARREN
PETER KANDELA
ARREST OF THREE HEALTH WORKERS
The Association of Israeli-Palestinian Physicians has drawn attention to the arrest of three Palestinian health professionals from Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem. All three are members of the Bethlehem branch of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, volunteers who have been providing relief health services in the area since 1979. Hanan Bannoura, aged 31, was arrested on July 7. She is head nurse in the paediatrics department at the El Maqasad Hospital. Dr Jamil Qumsieh, aged 29, was arrested at about the same time and has been placed under administrative detention for 6 months in the Ansar III prison camp. He is a paediatrician. Dr Hanna Rashmawi, aged 33, a specialist in dietetics, is under administrative detention in Ansar III. The AIPP has claimed that none of the three had been charged: "their only crime is to have been active in organising volunteer health services during a period of acute medical need". A second secretary at the Embassy of Israel in London notes that Dr Qumsieh was detained because of his membership of the Popular Committee of Beit Sahour. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice and was released on Sept 20. Dr Rashmawi is alleged to be a senior activist in the Palestinian Communist Party. The Embassy states that he has been accused of "inciting people to riot ... and distributing propaganda which threatened the security of the area". As of Aug 15 (AIPP) and Sept 29 (the Embassy) no further information on Ms Bannoura was available.
Concerning control of hookworm today, the key strategies of the Rockefeller Foundation’s campaign to eradicate disease by sanitation and health education are still not cost-effective. A major advance, however, is the availability of inexpensive, non-toxic, single-dose, broad-spectrum anthelmintics. Thus it became evident at this conference that Ascaris and Trichuris could be controlled with The basic strategy to hookworm. simultaneously this was accomplish goal developed in the hookworm of the 1920s when it was realised that treatment campaigns toward most those targeted heavily infected-rural schoolchildren-would drastically reduce hookworm
disease. A similar approach to the control of schistosomiasis by use of a single-dose, broad-spectrum antitrematode drug was devised during the 1970s and has now been adopted by WHO. Thus, at intervals of one to several years, treatment with low-cost anthelmintics directed toward those with heavy worm burdens should maintain intensity of infection below the threshold of disease. This should result in a pronounced reduction in morbidity and in improvement in the nutritional status of hundreds of millions of people, especially children.
Round the World
have changed their way of working in order to deal with the medical burden it has generated. The committees have established mobile units which travel to camps and villages as needed. They are staffed by doctors and nurses who work on a voluntary basis, in addition to their paid employment. 375 doctors at present work in the scheme-a third of the total number of doctors in the West Bank and Gaza. Since last December these units have treated over 34 500 people. Patients are not charged and drugs are provided free. This work has recently expanded to include health education and training in preventive medicine and first aid for women in the camps and villages, marking recognition of how women are shouldering major responsibility for health and welfare in these areas. According to Dr Mustapha Baraghouthi, chairman of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, many teams have been intimidated as they have gone about their work. In particular, a number of doctors and nurses have been detained for violating a 1913 Ottoman Empire law which states that no one person in the same place can do the same work without permission. In August the Union appealed to doctors overseas to help secure the release of those of its members who have been arrested: Dr Zakariya Agha, head of the Medical Association of Gaza, Dr Mohammad Shaker Al Abboushi, Dr Jamil Qumsieh, Dr Hanna Rashmawi, Dr Said Mustapha Darras, and a paediatric nurse, Miss Hanan Bannoura. The Union declares that they are being detained without charge or trial.
From
our
Correspondents
Israel INJURIES CAUSED BY HIGH-VELOCITY BULLETS THE director of A1 Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and head of the department of trauma and orthopaedics, Dr Rustom Nammari, is much concerned by the use of high-velocity bullets for riot control in the occupied territories. Because of the damage they have caused in many patients admitted to his hospital, he has appealed to the international medical community to put pressure on the Israeli Government to prohibit their use. Al Makassed Hospital is a charitable institution. With 200 beds it is the largest and most specialised hospital in the West Bank and Gaza. Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in December last year, the hospital has treated over 2000 patients with injuries related to riot control. According to Dr Nammari, 300 of these patients had "very serious injuries". Most of them have been young males between the ages of 10 and 25 who were and are being treated for compound and comminuted fractures, many inflicted at close range. Wajeeh Fraraji, a 16-year-old boy from Daheesha camp, near Bethlehem, now being treated at Al Makassed, was captured on June 6 this year after a stone-throwing incident. He alleges that he was first beaten, then forced to stand against a wall, where he was shot in the thigh by his captors. The lower third of the femur was shattered and the common peroneal nerve severed. As a result of the uprising, the hospital is facing an unprecedented influx of similar injuries, and an increase in traumatic paraplegia and severe pelvic and abdominal injuries, requiring long and complicated treatment and rehabilitation. Dr Nammari told me that he was aware of no other Government which used high-velocity bullets against rioters. Because these bullets travel at around 1km/s and fragment on impact, they can shatter bone and cause great damage to muscles, nerves, and vessels, which is difficult to treat and heal. Dr Nammari is also disturbed about the type of tear gas used in riot control in the occupied territories. As well as causing severe respiratory distress this particular gas, he said, is noted for causing fits and it can also lead to first-degree chemical bums when the skin is washed. Its effect persists to some degree as long as the contaminated clothes are worn. The hospital staff are handicapped by the lack of properly equipped rehabilitation units. A visiting medical team from Sweden has offered to establish a rehabilitation centre near Ramallah. Plans for this project were submitted to the military authorities for approval, but so far no reply has been received. Dr Nammari appealed to doctors overseas to put pressure on the Israeli Government to allow the project to go ahead. In the occupied territories access to hospital is difficult; and some camps have no resident doctor to provide basic medical care. A number of medical relief committees have been established and they have become increasingly important since the uprising, and they
The Rockefeller Foundation, New York City, NY, USA
107 Feltham Hill Road, Ashford, Middlesex TW15 1HH
KENNETH S. WARREN
PETER KANDELA
ARREST OF THREE HEALTH WORKERS
The Association of Israeli-Palestinian Physicians has drawn attention to the arrest of three Palestinian health professionals from Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem. All three are members of the Bethlehem branch of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, volunteers who have been providing relief health services in the area since 1979. Hanan Bannoura, aged 31, was arrested on July 7. She is head nurse in the paediatrics department at the El Maqasad Hospital. Dr Jamil Qumsieh, aged 29, was arrested at about the same time and has been placed under administrative detention for 6 months in the Ansar III prison camp. He is a paediatrician. Dr Hanna Rashmawi, aged 33, a specialist in dietetics, is under administrative detention in Ansar III. The AIPP has claimed that none of the three had been charged: "their only crime is to have been active in organising volunteer health services during a period of acute medical need". A second secretary at the Embassy of Israel in London notes that Dr Qumsieh was detained because of his membership of the Popular Committee of Beit Sahour. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice and was released on Sept 20. Dr Rashmawi is alleged to be a senior activist in the Palestinian Communist Party. The Embassy states that he has been accused of "inciting people to riot ... and distributing propaganda which threatened the security of the area". As of Aug 15 (AIPP) and Sept 29 (the Embassy) no further information on Ms Bannoura was available.