[antiwar-van] FW: Nursing Students Without Borders - Ramallah

[hanna kawas]

-----Original Message-----
From: Nursong Students Without Borders [mailto:seattlenswb at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 3:23 AM
To: nswbseattle at yahoo.com
Subject: Nursing Students Without Borders - Ramallah


Dear Friends,
We hope you are doing well.  We are finished up a week in Ramallah and Marek
and Geoff are in Jenin. We have all had an amazing week working with the
UPMRC (Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committee/Palestinian Medical
Relief Society) on mobile clinic and learning more about youth programs and
the affects the occupation is having on the health of these people.
Julie and I went on a mobile clinic on Tuesday to a small town.  The town
will be divided by the wall that is being built by the Israeli govenment.
This wall will span miles upon miles, is built within the occupied
territories and will encircle palestinian communities, seperating people
from their neighbors, agricultural lands, water sources and community
services.  The wall is within the green line, the border that seprated
Israel from the Palestinian Teritories before 1967, the year beginning the
occupation.  This is one of the five towns around Ramallah that will be
divided by this section of the wall. We went the long way - the short way, a
road Palestinians and Israelis used to share, can no longer be used by
Palestinians, even when providing medical relief.
The short way takes ten smooth paved minutes; over thirty are spent driving
up and down hills on dirt roads that could be deadly to some one who needs
to be stabalized and immobile is the long way.  The ambulance contained a
health worker, the two doctors and the paramedic.  We encountered our first
checkpoint. When we approached the jeep we quickly understood why they were
there.  The announcement about the exact placement of the wall had been made
that day.  A bit of fear went through me as they approached.  I didn't
expect them to be so young, even though I know that all Israeli are required
to serve in the military at the age of eighteen, women for a year and a half
and men for three years.  After that every Israeli man serves in the reserve
each year.   There is a movement of rufusniks - those that refuse to serve
in the military in the Occupied Territories and this is a growing group of
individuals.
The soldiers approached the ambulance and took our passports.  The health
worker who was accompanying us, Zaid, learned over and told me, "He is
scared."  It was true - you could tell by the way he held the papers and
looked at the paramedic and doctor.  They opened the back of the ambulance
and Julie and I looked out and smiled.  They wished us a good day and we
were on our way. I do not know if they would have been waved through if we
were not there.  Why did they stopped the ambulance in the first place?
What would have happened if the ambulance carried some one experiencing a
medical emergency?
We arrived at the school where the clinic would be set up and children ran
into the street to great us.  These children were between the ages of six
and nine and there must have been over thirty of them.  They all wanted to
shake our hands, give us five and say hello. They were all smiles and there
were soldiers within a mile of this school and a wall about to be built
through this town.  We quickly set up the clinic.  Suitcases of medications
were placed on the table to be distributed and the doctor's "offices" were
set up in different classrooms.  Two doctors who traveled with us in the
ambulance and two more would be arriving.  Julie assisted in distributing
medication with Zaid.  I worked with Dr. Mohammed taking vital signs.
During the physical exams I learned a great deal about the health in this
community.  I saw many cases of asthma because some one in the home smokes
and the difficulty is teaching about the dangers of smoking when living life
is so dangerous.  I saw blood pressures measures of peole who were extremely
hypertensive - without medication their lives would be in danger.  The
doctor was amazing with the children and I asked him if he had any of his
own.  Dr. Mohhamed said he did not want children.  He said it was because he
lived here.  After being here less than a week I could understand why.
Knowing these stories is enough to question one's ability to raise children
in these situations, even those that work in medical relief are not safe.
425 emergency medical personnel have been injured, 71 medical personnel have
been arrested and 25 doctors/nurses/ambulance drivers have been killed. This
is only from September of 2000 to September 0f 2003. It does not include the
personnel that have been killed in the last few months.
Julie left to see where the wall is going to be built in town and we went
one of the community leaders from the surrounding towns named Naseem, who
has been extremely helpful - always offering us help where ever we are in
the Territories.  The leaders from the surrounding towns were deciding what
could be done...What can be done?  The wall would destroy these communities
infrastructure. While distributing medication Julie noted that many
medications were in short supply and the access to these medications and
services would be even more limited.
One morning doing inventory of the medication roome at the UPMRC main
office.  The amount of donations were inspiring.  Most of the boxes we
unpacked were donations from the EU.  We did not see one box of donations
from the United states (the US sends 13 million dollars a day to the state
of Israel).  Medications alone do not make a community healthy, rather an
intact infastructure that can provide care for a community does.  40,000
dollars can buy one hospital bed, but more importantly it can provide a
primary healthcare center in a palestinian town cut off from medical
assistance.  If one day of US aid to Israel was used to build primary
community clinics within the occupied territories, 325 clinics could be
built.
Julie and I also went to observe the first aid teams that UPMRC trains to
help empower youth. The event we went to was a race that neighborhood
schools from the surrounding towns take part in. These are the same towns
that the wall will be built around, between and in. This was the first year
in three years that the race that the first aid team was helping with took
place, because people have been unable to move freely since the intifada
(Arabic for uprising) because of the occupation. Every one was extremely
excited. The team included two doctors, a health worker, the ambulace driver
and many young men who have been trained in first aid. It was a beautiful
day and every one was very friendly and interested in where we were from and
had many questions of what Americans thought of Palestinians. It is
difficult to explain that few Americans understand the situation here or
even know where this area is in the world, especially when the U.S. has so
much influence over the lives of these people. I tell people that we are
here to find out about the situation and tell our friend, fellow students
and our organization about the situation. People often tell me to let the
people in America know that we are not terrorists, so I am telling you.
Please feel free to forward this email to any one you believe would
appreciate these stories. The first aid team helped 35 of the boys with
treating scraps from falls, dehydration from over-exertion and breathing
problem with oxygen.
At times I feel like I should be helping more, but what I am beginning to
realize is that the UPMRC is very good at what they do. Wht they need from
Nursing Students Without Borders and the international community is to let
people know what is happenning here and how the occupation ias affecting
people's ability to receive proper medical care. We are learning a great
deal, about community health, preventative care and how a small group of
dedicate people can change the world. The Palestinians have proved that over
and over again.
That is enough for now. We are in Jenin now and hope to someday arrive in
Nabulus, which is another story for a different day. Thank you again for
your help. We would not be here is it was not for your contiued support.
Thanks to those who have read these email and have responded. We are sorry
if we have not responded personally, but hope to hear from you again.
Take Care,
Anna-Marie Murano
Nursing Students Without Borders


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