By Mohammad Zaatari
TYRE, Lebanon: Angry residents
vandalized a health clinic in the Shabriha Palestinian camp near the southern
coastal city of Tyre in retaliation for the death of a Lebanese woman whose
husband says was killed by medical neglect.
“Treat us like human beings and go
away,” was written on the wall of a clinic belonging to the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency. A section of the pharmacy was set on fire, computers
were destroyed and an employee’s car with diplomatic license plates was also
badly damaged in the attack.
The attack was an apparent reaction
to the death of a Lebanese woman in her ’40s, Nisreen Hussein Krayyem, who was
married to Palestinian Kamal Saleh Sleiman.
Her husband said UNRWA hospitals did
not treat her despite serious distress and said the clinic will not be allowed
to open in the camp until the U.N. body opens an investigation into the
incident.
The village of Shabriha sits at the
northern entrance of the city of Tyre where Lebanese families reside. It is a
Palestinian refugee camp with 1,800 residents and has a single clinic which
offers health care two days a week.
Last Wednesday Sleiman s wife was in
distress and needed attention. The husband said that since she was the holder
of a Lebanese nationality it was her right to be treated at the expense of the
Health Ministry.
But there were no beds available for
her at state health care at hospitals.
Sleiman added that she was
registered under his name in UNRWA’s database and therefore also had the right
to receive health care from the agency.
Administration at the
UNRWA-affiliated hospital he went to refused to admit her unless she received
permission from agency officials, Sleiman said.
Sleiman says he carried his wife
from one hospital to the next and continued to be turned away.
“UNRWA’s doctors neglected her case
and one doctor refused to go to the car to examine her,” he said.
When they finally found an open
hospital, Sleiman said the specialized equipment to treat her was not
available.
After an extended delay a respirator
was found for his wife but on Feb. 16, Krayyem died.
UNRWA officials issued a statement
about the incident, saying the agency did its best to help her.
“The death of Mrs. Nisreen Krayyem
is very regrettable. The death was caused by the lack of available respirators
in the Tyre and Sidon areas when the patient’s case deteriorated.”
“The Agency did its best to assist
her in finding a respirator in hospital,” the statement said.
But Krayyem’s family and four
children say that is not enough.
Her eldest daughter carried a
picture of her mother and sat with women offering their condolences.
“My mother is lying under the earth,
those responsible must be held accountable, and punished and jailed. ... Are we
animals or human beings?” she asked.
“Who should be held accountable who
will compensate my loss and bring my wife back?” Sleiman asked. “It is always the
case with Palestinians.”
In the last two years have seen several cases of
UNRWA cutting back its services in a number of camps in Tyre following attacks
there. The most recent attack occurred two months ago when some residents in
the Bourj al-Shamali camp near Tyre surrounded UNRWA’s clinic after it
allegedly refused to provide medical services to certain patients.
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