Following are excerpts
from an Al-Jazeera TV report on the medical supplies delivered by the
aid convoys to Gaza. The report aired on July 20, 2010.
Reporter: This
is the warehouse of the Ministry of Health in Gaza. To visitors it seems
as if everything is fine, but officials here think otherwise. These
are medicines donated by various countries and institutions. Much of
it has become a burden rather than a blessing.
Gaza Health Ministry
official Mounir Al-Boursh: This is Tamiflu, for swine flu, or H1N1.
This is two million dollars worth of aid, but the epidemic is over,
and unfortunately, some countries get rid of their stocks...
Reporter: Munir
Al-Boursh, the head of the donations department in the Health Ministry
in Gaza, says that only 30% of the medical aid donated after the war
benefited the hospitals and health services.
Mounir Al-Boursh:
A certain country sent ten truckloads of medicine, accompanied by an
official delegation, but all these medicines were past their expiration
date.
Reporter: We asked
about these dialysis units, standing in a corner of the warehouse, which
had arrived in one of the aid convoys.
Why are they not taken
to the hospitals?
Gaza Health Ministry
official Bassam Barhoum:
These devices were past their expected life span when we got them. In
other words, all operational hours were used up in their country of
origin.
Reporter: These
are disintegrating machines, and medicines that have passed their expiry
date by months and even years. They arrive here without any supervision,
under the slogan of breaking the siege on Gaza, the population of which
is grateful for any initiative to support it. But here, we face a different
story with regard to donations.
Mounir Al-Boursh:
These burial shrouds were donated to us. This shroud is 125 cm long.
It is deplorable that our Arab brothers are sending burial shrouds for
the children of Gaza.
Reporter: While
they await the medicines that they really need, the workers are busy
loading these medicines, on their way to the garbage dumps rather than
to hospitals. In Gaza, the decomposition of these medicines creates
a huge problem, in the absence of incinerators or designated places.
Even if the sick are saved from this medicine, the environment will
definitely not be spared their perils and catastrophic effects, above
and below the ground.