Tag Archives: epidemic

Epidemics on the rise and masses injured and ill in Gaza – as planned by Israel’s government?

An injuried girl lies on the floor of Nasser Hospital in Gaza on January 22: victims of Israel’s genocide are now being treated on hospital floors because there is no space anywhere else.

It has been suggested that Israel’s military have been destroying Gaza’s health system, not in search of terrorists lurking under the hospitals, but to increase the likelihood of serious illness and death.

And now…

Gaza’s healthcare system was already struggling to function before the war; after more than 100 days of fighting, it has reached a catastrophic low. With more than 60,000 people injured and tens of thousands ill, their chances of receiving proper care – including life-saving interventions – are rapidly dwindling.

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According to the World Health Organization, of the 36 hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip before the war, only 14 are now functioning – seven in the north and seven in the south. Yet even they are only partly operational: only some departments are working, with medical teams stretched far beyond capacity and contending with severe shortages of staff, equipment, medication, fuel for running the facilities, and food and water for patients and teams. With the hospitals working at more than double their capacity, patients are treated on the floor. Another two hospitals, in Khan Yunis, are providing basic services alone, and only to people sheltering there. Since the war began, more than 90 healthcare facilities and 80 ambulances have been damaged.

Aid organizations report that Israel is placing insurmountable obstacles on transferring medical supplies to hospitals, primarily in northern Gaza, and that they are hard pressed to evacuate wounded people due, among other things, to relentless bombings, destruction of roads, fuel shortages and difficulties coordinating the transfer of supplies or injured persons.

The lack of basic medical services is especially worrying given the steady spread of infectious diseases, due to harsh conditions in the overcrowded IDP camps: more than 1 million people huddled together without clean water, enough food or conditions for maintaining basic hygiene.

Tens of thousands of cases have already been reported of respiratory infections, diarrhoea (especially in children under 5) and Hepatitis-A – all going untreated. This situation also naturally exacerbates chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, cancer and mental disorders.

Israel argues that the responsibility for this dire reality lies solely with Hamas, for using hospitals to establish command centres, dig tunnels underneath, hide weapons, and stage attacks, among other things.

However, these claims do not override the special protection granted by international humanitarian law to hospitals, medical teams, patients and displaced persons.

They certainly do not absolve Israel of its obligations, as the principle of reciprocity does not apply in this body of law: one party violating the rules does not permit the other party to follow suit. The actions of Hamas in no way relieve Israel of its responsibility for the harm caused to civilians.

International humanitarian law provides special protection for the most vulnerable populations that cannot protect themselves, to ensure that every person who needs medical care receives it.

Denying it sentences thousands of people in Gaza to death, pain and indescribable suffering. This approach is both immoral and illegal, and empties a key moral principle of international humanitarian law of meaning.

No doubt the International Court of Justice and the governments of, for example, the United Kingdom and the United States have been thoroughly briefed on this.

But the two governments named still claim to be unable to form an opinion on whether Israel is breaking international law and should be deprived of the weapons it is using to perpetuate the bloodshed in Gaza.

Are our governments deliberately attacking international law in order to support genocide?

Source: Epidemics on the rise and masses injured and ill – yet Gaza’s healthcare system is barely functioning | B’Tselem


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Tories inflict head louse epidemic on poor children with new NHS cost-cutting measure

Head lice: Your scalp is probably itching at the sight of them.

Did a private pharmaceutical company lobby the Tories to take bug-busting shampoos off the NHS, so it could double its income?

Interesting thought, isn’t it?

And, if austerity is over, why can’t the Tory NHS afford simple anti-headlouse shampoo?

A head lice epidemic could be coming to … schools after the NHS banned GPs from prescribing “bug buster” shampoo.

NHS England changed its guidelines in March on what over-the-counter items could be routinely prescribed in a bid to save £100m from its budget, with head lice treatment axed from the list.

Previously, the insecticide treatment cost the NHS £4.92, but parents fighting off itchy bugs will now be forced to fork out double that to buy the same product over-the-counter.

A spokesman for the NHS said head lice could be “safely and effectively treated by wet combing”, with chemical intervention recommended in only the most “exceptional circumstances”.

Emma Hardy, Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle, said: “This is just another example of this Tory government making a small saving in the short term that could lead to a much bigger cost in the long term.

“They’ve also completely failed to recognise how significant a cost this treatment could be to someone who is just about managing to get by.”

Source: Warning Hull could face ‘head lice epidemic’ as GPs ban shampoo – Hull Live

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Hands off my medical records, Jeremy!*

The two-fingered salute: Jeremy *unt displays his high regard for the NHS patients whose details he wants to steal and sell to private business.

The two-fingered salute: Jeremy *unt displays his high regard for the NHS patients whose details he wants to steal and sell to private business.

Conservatives. They think they own everything – including your medical records.

If you live in England, Jeremy ‘The Misprint’ *unt wants your doctor to send your confidential patient record to a national database, from which it will be sold on – sold on to make money for him, mark you – to “approved” private companies and also universities.

The system is called the General Patient Extraction Service (GPES) – although exactly who it serves is entirely up for debate. You may also see it described as the care.data scheme.

He thinks this gross abuse of patient confidentiality is a good idea. But then, he’s a Tory and therefore thinks he has a God-given right to take anything, from anyone, if they have less filthy lucre than himself.

According to the Daily Mail – and you know the Tories have lost the plot when even the Heil weighs in against them – the *unt wants us to believe that the information will be valuable for medical research and screening for common diseases.

And an NHS England spokesman told the paper, “The programme will provide vital information to approved organisations about the quality of health services.”

Oh really?

So in fact this information could be used by private health companies as evidence of failures by the National, publicly-funded, service, yes?

How would it help in screening for common diseases? This information becomes freely available without any data having to be sold – how else would we know when an epidemic breaks out?

And how is this valuable for medical research – beyond the possibility that the now-infamous ‘job offer’ for people to take part in human medical experimentation may be targeted at particular individuals, according to medical records that they thought were only available to their own, trusted GP?

Doctors say Mr *unt and NHS England have failed in their duty to publicise the plan in a proper and reasonable way, that patients are not getting an “informed” choice about the matter, and that patients could be identified from the data with any information other than that on common conditions – which, we’ve already established, becomes public knowledge anyway.

Some Local Medical Committees (LMCs) are already discussing whether to opt out of the system – and this blog would urge all the others to do the same.

If you are concerned about this gross invasion of your privacy, you can contact your own LMC and request that they opt out. Contact details can be found on the British Medical Association’s website here.

*In fact he won’t be able to get his filthy hands on them anyway because I live in Wales. The title is for effect.