Taawon has partnered with MAP, the UK-based organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians, with the support of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Big Heart Foundation’s "Salam Ya Seghar" campaign, to open the first burns treatment unit of its kind at the Alia Hospital in Hebron and with the latest international standards.
The new unit aims to provide specialized medical services for the treatment of burns in the southern part of the West Bank, with its population of about 900,000. This is the second burns unit now operating in the overall West Bank area, after the Rafidia hospital in Nablus.
The infrastructure of the burns unit at the Alia Hospital has been rehabilitated according to international standards, and the hospital has been provided with all the necessary medical supplies for operating the unit to ensure the provision of integrated services to burn sufferers.
The unit contains 11 special beds, a special burns unit/room for children, and a playroom equipped to provide educational and psychological support and functional treatment for the children who are being treated. Thirteen of the hospital doctors and nurses have been trained by specialists from abroad in order to provide integrated services to the patients. Two surgeons have been sent to India and two others to Bangladesh for specialized training in complex surgeries.
The project was based on a comprehensive study of the provision of the treatment services for burns in Palestine prepared by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in cooperation with MAP and the International Medical Education Fund. The study found that there is a need to develop specialized units in the West Bank and Gaza, to develop therapeutic and medical protocols, and to improve the flow of information and systems of transfers between service providers. The partner institutions, as represented by Taawon and MAP, initiated the fundraising and communication with the Big Heart Foundation and The Arab Fund to contribute to the establishment of the specialized burns unit for patients in the Alia Hospital in Hebron.
Dr. Tafeeda Jarbawi, the Director General of Taawon, said: “we seek to support the national health policy and to contribute to the provision and support of the needs of patients in Hebron, because of its impact on improving the health status of the patients and the Palestinian citizen, in the specialty of burns and in general.” She also added: "We are working with our MAP partners and the donors to improve the health services in Palestine, particularly the specialized services in the national hospitals, by providing funds to support the establishment and development of these units. We have pledged to provide the necessary equipment for the specialized unit, while MAP provides the training of the staff to ensure the burns unit operates at its best, in addition to providing medical supplies to cover the needs of the unit for a period of 5 years from its inception."
Mira Almukarker, the director of MAP’s programs in the West Bank, added that, “in the previous months, we took another step forward when MAP hosted, for the third time, a team from (InterBurns) – The International Network for Training, Education and Research for burns – with whom we worked on supporting the development of burns care in Palestine in cooperation with our organization and our partners, as well as members of the Alia hospital team in Hebron and the Rafidia hospital in Nablus.” MAP confirmed that at the current time, local trainers are providing weekly "basic care training", with a mission to train 3,000 healthcare staff from the Palestinian Ministry of Health to contribute to the support that is needed for patient care. Mira Almukarker also expressed her hope that the training workshops will continue, especially for the employees who will operate the new burns unit in Hebron.
