Days Of Palestine [Gaza] – A Palestinian health official has warned that the lives of many heart patients in the Gaza Strip have become at risk after the Palestinian Authority (PA) decreased medical referrals to hospitals in the occupied territories.
Dr. Mohamed Habib, head of the cardiac catheterization department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, expressed deep concern over the lives of heart patients, who need stent implantation, after the PA reduced medical referrals for Gaza patients by almost 45 percent during the current year.
There are long waiting lists of heart patients, who need medical referrals to hospitals outside Gaza in order to undergo stent procedures, Dr. Habib said.
The PA health ministry in Ramallah only approved medical referrals for 531 such patients out of 1,000 applications submitted to it during the last three months, while it gave 922 referrals for patients with similar cases in the first quarter of 2018, according to the health official.
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