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Name
Fadyah
-
Profession
Question
Dear Doctor,
Is it possible to send blood donations from the United States to Palestine?
Answer
It is possible with great deal of difficulties because of Israeli restrictions. We are unable to receive blood from surrounding countries, like Jordan for example. However, we do need your moral and political support to pressure the US government to stop the killings of Palestinians by occupation forces.
Name
Rania
-
Profession
Question
How is the stock of blood bags in Palestine? Do you have enough? Are there any statistics on the numbers of Palestinians that donate their blood?
Answer
Rania - During the last invasion of Rafah in occupied Gaza, we had shortage of blood bags and for that we declared the International Transfusion to help the hundreds of injured people. During that time we organized a national donation in Palestine, but normally, we do not have this shortage. However, because of the closures, and whenever mass killings take place especially in the rural areas, our services suffer because those areas are unequipped to deal with such emergencies both in blood stock and equipment to deliver blood.
Because of that, we ask all international organizations to exert pressure on Israel to permit medical staff to reach the needy and for the Israelis to stop violating all international laws, especially the Geneva Convention as it pertains to medical services.
Name
Sherif
- United Kingdom
Profession
Question
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah.
I wanted to ask you, Doctor, if, during the tests that are done on Palestinian blood that is donated and before the transfusion, any serious diseases are discovered.
Jazakum Allah khair
Answer
Of course we perform the necessary tests to qualify blood before it is used. Until now, we did not face any serious disease. If you mean diseases like AIDS, thankfully, we do not have that problem here in Palestine.
Name
Kazim
- Australia
Profession
Question
Salaam Dr. Ghassan,
Do Palestinian hospitals have blood donations from Israelis, or do they only use Palestinian blood? If you receive blood donations from Israelis, how do you ensure that it is safe?
Answer
In general, we use blood donated by Palestinians. However, if we receive blood from Israelis, we will take the necessary precautions to test it just like we test any other blood. I wanted to point out that we have NEVER received ANY blood from Israelis and hope that we will never need to.
Name
Noha
-
Profession
Question
Are there enough donors in Palestine to fulfill the continuous need for blood transfusions, considering that there are critical conditions frequently?
Answer
We hope that the critical condition will come to an end soon, and the bleeding of Palestinians will, too, end. I believe that all Palestinians are ready to be donors. I want to point out that our problem is not shortage of donors but rather our inability to deliver that blood to the rural and remote areas due to the military checkpoints, continuous closures and incursions.
We have so far about 46,000 injuries during the last three years. This means that blood donations is a continuous problem for us.
Name
L.M
-
Profession
Question
Salamualykm, Dr.Hamadan.
Is it safe to donate blood in the West Bank? Is it easy to sterilize the equipment needed to take blood from donors?
Thankyou.
Answer
Yes it is safe to donate blood in Palestine and we have the right qualified medical staff. We do have good sterilizing equipment in all places we conduct blood transfusion and we do perform all the necessary tests on received blood and donors.
Name
TA
-
Profession
Question
Do you have time to run the routine tests on the donated blood? Like testing for AIDS and Hepatitis C virus?
Also, is there enough funding for these tests?
Answer
We usually use the stock of blood available first, which is tested for AIDS and Hepatitis C. Unfortunately, in emergency situations when the need for blood exceeds our stock, we may not have the necessary time to perform ALL tests on donated blood. Even though we suffer from lack of funding, we generally try to provide quality blood to those in need. Thankfully, so far we have not had any serious complications due to donated blood.
Name
Elizabeth
- United States
Profession
Question
Doctor, do you have any information on the current health situation in Rafah?
Answer
The current health situation in Rafah is still critical. Because during the last invasion there were more than 460 injuries and because of the demolitions of buildings and other infrastructures, moral and psychological stress, homelessness, we are facing rapidly deteriorating health conditions in Rafah.
For example, we are unable to provide drinking water and other essentials to the affected residents. Because of all the above, the poverty level, which is usually high in Rafah, is now even higher. All of which is placing huge demands on the health care system there.
Name
Ziyad
- India
Profession
Question
What are the types of cases that normally receive blood transfusion in Palestine?
Answer
The number one recipient of donated blood is by the injured. Until now, we have over 46,000 injuries in the last three years. This is a very high number considering the total number of the Palestinian population. If we were to take this percentage and apply it to India, for example, this would amount to about 18 million injuries, just to give you a sense of this catastrophe.
The second case for transfusions is pregnant women and children. Why children? Because over 55% of Palestinian children suffer from anemia (inability of the human body to produce the blood to perform normal tasks), because of the high rate of poverty. Many of these children require blood transfusions.
The third case is pregnant women and other cases of blood disease.
Name
Rene
- France
Profession
Question
Dear Dr. Hamdan,
What is the latest atrocity on the Palestinian people that you were an eye witness to?
Answer
During my 14 years serving in Medical Relief Society, I have witnessed many atrocities that I can not describe all in this session. To give you a sense of these atrocities, I will describe what I have seen in the old section of Nablus.
In April 2002, the Old City came under attack by Israeli helicopters, tanks, F-16s, and other heavy weapons. During that assault we had over 86 Palestinians dead, 460 injured and more than 40,000 people who were living in the Old City were under curfews for over 100 days.
There was untold suffering of these people. We were not even able to deliver such necessities as bread and water. This caused a lot of serious illnesses to people with kidney disease who had no access to drinking water. There were a number of people who required dialysis who could not be reached due to the curfews.
To give you a sense of the tragedy, many of the dead were left to decompose inside their homes for many weeks before they were buried.
Of course, I am not even discussing the 500 dwellings that were totally or partially demolished.
I wish to point out that we are living under a continuous siege and atrocities. For example, yesterday Israeli helicopters attacked a Palestinian car and killed two passengers inside and injured five others. Today, one child was killed, four other injured in Balata refugee camp.
The average number of Palestinians killed is about three to four daily. This amounts to about 120 killed per month many of which I have witnessed myself.
Name
Fuad
- Saudi Arabia
Profession
Question
Doctor...assalamualaikum
I heard somewhere that the cost of blood of a Muslim in Israel is much less than that of a Christian, and even more less than that of an Israeli. Is this just a rumor, or is it true?
Answer
If you mean the monetary cost of Muslim and Christian Palestinians, there is no difference. We have not received any Israeli blood, so I could not tell you what that cost is.
If you mean the cost of shedding the blood of Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The political cost of shedding Palestinian blood is the same for both Muslim and Christian. If you compare that with shedding the Israeli blood, shedding Israeli blood has been far more costly than that of Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian.
In general, Muslim blood is now so cheap all over the world that Muslims are being massacred by American, Israeli, and British with no consequence.
Name
Abo Baker
- Nigeria
Profession
Question
Doctor
Can u give real life examples of how blood transfusions saved peoples lives in Palestine?
Thank u
Answer
Palestinian lives are being saved daily by blood transfusions. We have thousands of examples answering your question that are beyond the scope of this session, especially for the injured, anemic children and pregnant women.
Name
George
- Germany
Profession
Question
I read in many places that the environmental situation in Palestine is very bad. Can you expand on that and tell us how it affects the health of Palestinians?
Answer
Very much so, especially in the rural areas, which are normally heavily populated with Israeli settlements. For example, In the villages of Salem, Azmout, and Dair Alhatab east of Nablus, an area that is surrounded by Israeli settlements, the Israelis have dug a trench around these villages to prevent the movements of the Palestinians. Later, they filled these trenches with sewage water coming from the settlements which caused a dramatic increase in Hepatitis A and parasitic diseases among the local population. Of course, this is made more acute by our inability to deliver the necessary medical aids to these villages due to the closures.
Generally, during the 2002 invasion, and the continuing incursions, the Israeli forces systematically destroyed the infrastructure in invaded areas. This caused the mixing of sewage and drinking water causing a dramatic deterioration of health conditions.
Another example of the deteriorating environment is the uprooting of trees by the Israelis making some areas a man-made desert. In the last year alone, over one-hundred thousand trees were uprooted, some of these are olive trees that are hundreds of years old.
I could go into more examples, but due to time limitations, I am unable to go into more details.
Name
Abdinassir
- Somalia
Profession
Question
I quote this answer you have provided earlier "We usually use the stock of blood available first, which is tested for AIDS and Hepatitis C. Unfortunately, in emergency situations when the need for blood exceeds our stock, we may not have the necessary time to perform ALL tests on donated blood. Even though we suffer from lack of funding, we generally try to provide quality blood to those in need. Thankfully, so far we have not had any serious complications due to donated blood"
as mention above you indecated that there times when you dont screen the blood you received from the donors sir is'nt that a risky and if its a risky why dont you disaoprove it.
Answer
We agree with you that is a risky endeavor, however, these are emergency situations and sometimes saving a life takes precedent over other considerations.
Medically speaking, we are allowed under certain circumstances to transfer blood directly from one person to another related person with NO screening.
Name
atef
- Jordan
Profession
employee
Question
dear dr GHASSAN I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT your feelings as asarver. when you see your people killing
Answer
We live in tragic conditions, and we seek to provide the utmost care to our people. The satisfaction we get from that is indescribable.
Name
hossino
-
Profession
Question
Is there much blood availible for Palestinians who need it?
Is there any way us Americans can get blood donated to Palestine?
Answer
I refer you to the first question we answered in this session. Generally, we have blood available to us, in certain emergencies, we suffer from blood shortage.
For you Americans, while it is logistically possible to donate blood to Palestinians, the security conditions and the closures do not permit that. We are unable to receive blood from neighboring countries, much less from the United States due to Israeli restrictions.
Name
ANAS
- Syria
Profession
employee
Question
HI DR what about the donater people how are you see them?
Answer
Is gives us great pleasure to see people compete to donate blood here. We are a nation of great people who are willing to give their own blood to save others. Thank you for your question!
