PALESTINIANS FACING MEDICAL APARTHEID DURING PANDEMIC
As emergency medical technicians working in the San Diego city 911 system for the past year and a half, my co-workers and I are not OK. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers, particularly those who work on ambulances, have experienced unprecedented conditions, and it is taking a serious toll. We are overworked and exhausted, filled with terror at the possibility of getting sick or infecting our families. We scarf down food at the hospital in between calls, because we know there may not be time for it later. We diligently and obsessively clean and disinfect after every patient, wiping until our arms are sore. We do it for the love of medicine and for our community. We see all that must be done to overcome this pandemic and we rise to the occasion, side by side.
While conditions are slowly improving here in San Diego, especially with diligent vaccine administration, it’s not the case with my family in the West Bank of Palestine. Video chatting with family members is consumed by easing their anxieties and remedying their lack of education about COVID-19. I regularly hear my aunt sob to my mother in fear, asking her how to help her children with symptoms. Regardless of the hardship my co-workers and I endure, it is incomparable to the continued medical apartheid Indigenous Palestinians are forced to contend with on their own land. As a warden to the open air prison that is Palestine, Israel is allowing its de facto 5 million prisoners to die a slow and painful death due to lack of accessibility to comprehensive health care. There are approximately 5 million Palestinians, of which 2 million are Gazans under a relentless blockade since 2007.
Back in San Diego, the joy of going to work subsides with each shift. I wake up with an aching body knowing that I have to go lift up people who cannot lift themselves, both figuratively and literally. When asked, “Am I going to be OK?” or “Am I going to die?” I was able to calm and reassure my patients with certainty. Now I can no longer speak those words confidently. I am usually an optimist to a fault. I strive to be energetic and supportive, giving a patient the best ambulance ride possible while experiencing something terrible. While I still believe that my words and actions can make a difference for that short ride, I am losing faith. I vainly wonder if the lines my N95 mask has made on my face are permanent.
Again, my mind drifts to Palestine. Being an American Palestinian EMT in San Diego where conditions are strenuous is still not comparable to conditions found in Palestine. According to United Nations data from August, there are 97 ICU beds with ventilators in Gaza, 10 of which were provided by the World Health Organization. In Gaza, electricity is a luxury given approximately four hours per day, making the continuous ventilation of acute COVID-19 patients almost impossible for the other 20 hours. Less than 100 ventilators that work sporadically for a population that slightly exceeds 2 million is not only cruel but a blatant disregard of Palestinian life and well-being. It further reveals how medical apartheid is acceptable in Israel. For Palestinians, there are critical shortages for every resource needed to keep the novel coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, at bay, including test kits, surgical and N95 masks, gloves, essential medical equipment such as ventilators and x-ray machines, and even medication. When speaking with family members in the West Bank, I am told repeatedly how they cannot be tested because there are an exceedingly limited number of tests available.
Israel has boasted of partly vaccinating nearly 50 percent of Israelis and fully vaccinating a third of the population, more than any other nation thus far. This almost completely excludes Palestinians, who are less than 1 percent vaccinated so far, according to Doctors Without Borders. Already living in unsafe and inhumane conditions, Palestinians now face an inability to access life-saving treatments and vaccinations amid a pandemic, moving Israel further away from reconciliation of its already-mounting human rights violations.
It is disheartening and difficult worrying about my health and the health of my family here in San Diego while also being continuously anxious about the health of my bewildered and vulnerable family in Palestine. Has the world forgotten them, and what more can I do to protect them? When Americans turn a blind eye to the Palestinians’ pandemic struggles, it encourages the Israeli government to use this pandemic to further diminish a people whose only aspiration is to live in dignity.
Touma is an emergency medical technician for American Medical Response, the city of San Diego’s ambulance provider. She lives in El Cajon.
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