The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded 2 training courses on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote the Right to Health” attended by 51 doctors, nurses and staff members in different departments of the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) primary healthcare centers in the Gaza and North Gaza. The two 20-hour training courses were held in Gaza City from 09-19 September 2022.
These training courses are held under “Promote, Respect, and Fulfill the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health in the Gaza Strip” project implemented by PCHR in partnership with Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) and funded by the European Union. The project aims to improve access to healthcare, legal counseling, and legal assistance for Palestinian patients; to mainstream the culture of international human rights and humanitarian law, particularly the right to health, by building the capacities of those working in the health sector and right to health activists; and to promote improved monitoring, documenting, and reporting of violations of the right to health.
At the end of the 2 courses, PCHR held a closing ceremony where Mr. Jaber Wishah, Member of PCHR’s Board of Directors, stressed that the training course is part of the greater attention given by PCHR to the deepening of human rights knowledge and its relation with right to health as a fundamental right and PCHR’s efforts to perpetuate this right when setting national policies, to contribute to improving the health conditions and healthcare for patients as well as enhancing the role of the staff in the health sector in promoting and protecting these rights while on duty.
For his part, Mr. Isma’il Abu Jazar, the Supervisor on PMRS’s Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Program, emphasized the importance of continuous work with PCHR to train all MOH’s medical staff with all its specialties in order to provide them with the necessary knowledge and skills so that they could mainstream the right health concepts and knowledge within the community to improve the quality of healthcare service provided to the population.
Dr. Ikbar Qaddoura, Head of the Gaza Health Department, thanked PCHR for its efforts and expressed her appreciation for holding such courses for MOH’s medical staff, stressing the importance of this training in building and sharpening the capacities of primary healthcare centers’ staff in the right to health, with the aim of improving better access to health services, and enhancing society’s access to health as well as building their capacities and raising their awareness.
The participants commended this course especially as it was characterized with rich topics and contributed to raising their awareness on human rights in general and the right to health in particular.