LEBANON: Funds dry up for hospital in impoverished camp

The US$5m Al-Quds hospital in Ain al-Hilweh, just outside the southern port city of Sidon, is the single largest investment in the camp's 60-year history and aims to treat a range of chronic diseases, heart problems, cancers and nervous disorders suffered by Ain al-Hilweh residents. It also aims to have a children's wing and an intensive care unit.

But hospital director Ibrahim Marshoud told IRIN the hospital was still some $2m from completion after international donations to the Palestinian charity Badr Foundation, which has paid for the hospital, ceased in recent months.

“The Badr Foundation is waiting for money. Now the hospital can only undertake minor operations; we still need 36 beds, incubators, scanners, electrical beds and five kidney dialysis machines,” said Marshoud, a former member of the British Medical Council and previously senior medical adviser to the UN agency which assists Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“The health problems in the camp are both disease and the environment. The streets are an environmental disease, while medically chronic diseases are extremely common, such as diabetes, hyper-tension and cancers.”

UNRWA says the camp is home to nearly 46,000 refugees, while estimates by Fatah, the dominant faction in the camp, say around 80,000 people are crammed into the camp's 1.5sqkm.

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