A Gazan patient was pronounced day at noontime Friday at al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza after he had been denied treatment abroad for over 50 days.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry said 20-year-old Bassam al-Attar died of a cancer affecting his lymph nodes. Medics’ appeals to transfer the casualty to equipped hospitals outside of Gaza had gone unheeded for 50 days until the patient ultimately breathed his last.
The health of dozens of sick patients preterm children and cancer-stricken civilians in Gaza is in danger after the Palestinian Authority (PA) chaired by Mahmoud Abbas denied them treatment abroad.
The Health Ministry said it is deeply concerned over the health of dozens of cancer-stricken patients who have been prevented from receiving life-saving therapy outside Gaza.
The ministry called on all concerned parties to pressure the PA to supply the besieged enclave with much-needed medicines most notably chemical doses and immunity-boosting drugs and to immediately transfer emergency cases to hospitals outside Gaza before it is too late.
The ministry further urged Egypt to unblock the Rafah border crossing with Gaza so as to allow hundreds of stranded humanitarian cases to undergo therapy abroad.
It further appealed to the international humanitarian institutions to step up pressure on the Israeli occupation so as to force it to cease its racist and immoral practices against sick Palestinians and to observe international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention which grant sick patients the right to free and safe transfers.
