Building Bridges between East and West Jerusalem through medicine

Project Rozana has launched two new health programs to fill the gaps in the Palestinian health system and share knowledge between Israelis and Palestinians

Much of the focus of the Israeli media surrounding President Biden’s visit to the Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) in East Jerusalem this week surrounded the politics of a US President visiting a Palestinian Hospital unaccompanied by an Israeli official, challenging the status of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.

Yet something far more meaningful is happening that the hospital that will bear fruit long after the President jets off to Saudi Arabia. At the visit, the US government pledged $100 million to the East Jerusalem Hospital Network which aims to build the capacity of the Palestinian health system.

With less fanfare but considerable on-ground impact, Project Rozana this week launched a nurses’ training program at AVH and a women’s health program in remote villages in the West Bank, working with Hadassah and Sheba to cultivate trust between Israelis and Palestinians.

The new initiative in Jerusalem focuses on cultivating peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians while bridging critical healthcare delivery gaps in the nursing field. While Palestinians make up 38% of Jerusalem’s residents, only 5% have Israeli citizenship. Palestinian-dominated East Jerusalem has inferior health care and infrastructure compared to West Jerusalem.

The new program provides an opportunity for nurses from Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem, to receive hospital-based training in specialty and sub-specialty fields including Nephrology and Dialysis, Oncology, Geriatric and Critical Care, delivered by Hadassah Medical Center's world-renowned nursing school which is located in West Jerusalem.

The comprehensive program was developed to fill skills gaps at Augusta Victoria Hospital and the Palestinian nursing sector in general, and to respond to patient distribution and needs.

Palestinian Nurse Faten, who is a participant in the program, said in an interview at the Hadassah oncology ward, that being part of the initiative would broaden her knowledge of how other hospitals functioned.

 “[It} allows me to deal with other hospitals, to know what their strategies and policies are and see the difference between Hadassah and our hospital (Augusta Victoria) and to know what are the new things that we can add to our hospital, to give more to our patients with leukemia.”

It is hoped that building the capacity of nurses working in AVH's departments will improve the quality of nursing services at AVH while enabling nurses from both sides to engage with patients on the 'other side'.

Project Rozana also launched a new women’s telehealth program at Sheba Medical Center in early July. This program is designed to reduce the mortality rate of babies born in Gaza and the West Bank due to complications that may arise from inadequate medical core, overstretched healthcare facilities, poverty and a lack of access to nutritious food, as well as the impact of the ongoing conflict.

“Enabling Palestinians to provide healthcare in their remote communities lays the groundwork for an empowered people,” said Ronit Zimmer, Executive Director of Project Rozana. “The training at Sheba will enable local healthcare workers to operate virtual clinics in remote areas, eliminating many logistical, bureaucratic, and security obstacles for rural residents seeking quality healthcare.”

Project Rozana chose to implement the Women’s Health Initiative with Sheba, building on its world leading Femtech platform OB-GYN Remote. Under the Sheba Medical Center’s OB-GYN Beyond initiative, Palestinian healthcare workers were trained to use telehealth technologies that will enable them to remotely monitor the health of both the mothers and their foetuses.

They will be using technology from the Netanya based HeraMED company, which was recently floated on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX:HMD) and is currently in a long term agreement with the Joondalup Health Campus in Western Australia to offer its HeraCARE pregnancy monitoring solution to expectant mothers.

Photo: Palestinian healthcare workers are trained in remote care for pregnant women at Sheba Medical Center (supplied)