4 August 2017
Ten years of blockade and closure, and repeated military offensives, have put Gaza’s health sector under huge strain. In recent months, hospital services have been drastically cut back because of chronic electricity shortages, which have left hospitals reliant on backup generator power for up to 20 hours a day.
Amid this context Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) continue to support the Gaza’s remarkable healthcare professionals working in the most challenging of circumstances.
One of the services we support is the provision of physiotherapy care to patients. In addition to the regular needs of a population of two million people, Israel’s 2014 military offensive on Gaza left large numbers of people with limb, spinal cord and head injuries.
“Medical Aid for Palestinians has a crucial role in helping the medical system in Gaza.”
Physiotherapists in Gaza have limited opportunities for further training, as restrictions on movement imposed by the closure mean that many are prevented from travelling out to other areas of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) or abroad for professional development opportunities such as fellowships, trainings and conferences. This has often meant that physiotherapists are using outdated practices to treat their patients, which can lead to complications and reduce or delay patient recovery.
By supporting specialist physiotherapists from the UK to travel to the oPt, MAP is helping to bring these training opportunities to physiotherapists in Gaza.
This week Rachael Moses, a consultant respiratory physiotherapist, and Helen Ricketts, a physiotherapist working in oncology, joined MAP in Gaza to providing training to local respiratory physios. The course aimed to help them to develop their techniques to assess and treat patients with disorders of the respiratory system.
MAP’s team in Gaza caught up with one of the trainers, Rachael, to find out more:
“We have been fortunate enough to spend the last few days working with the respiratory physiotherapists of Gaza, to provide an educational programme to help them grow and develop their treatment techniques.”
“For the past three days we have been talking about anatomy and physiology…[and] common pathologies and interventions that we can use as physiotherapists to help treat common respiratory problems for people here in Gaza.”
Watch the short videos below to hear directly from Rachael to find out more about the training.
MAP would like to thank Rachael and Helen for their time and energy this week!
Please donate today to help MAP continue to support training and development for Palestinian physiotherapists and other medical professionals in Gaza.
