Israel Ambulance Service Refuses to Enter the Unrecognized Arab Bedouin Villages in the Naqab, in Violation of the Citizens' Rights to Life, Health and Dignity
On 2 January 2011, Adalah, in cooperation with Yasmin al-Naqab Health Organization, wrote to the Deputy Health Minister and the Director of the Southern District of Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national ambulance service, demanding a change in the MDA's policy of preventing ambulances from entering the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab, and clear guidelines to that effect.
The letter was sent by Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher in response to the complaints of large numbers of people living in the unrecognized villages to Yasmin al-Naqab about the MDA's refusal to respond to their emergency calls. In the majority of cases, their calls for an ambulance were refused either because there were no paved roads to their village, or simply because they were residents of an unrecognized village. In other cases, the ambulance would arrive many hours after the incident. Some complaints cited incidents in which paramedics asked that the patient should be brought to the main road outside the village, a demand that is both unreasonable and dangerous.
There are 43 unrecognized villages in the Naqab, with a total population of around 100,000 people. Children make up the majority of the population, of whom 42% are under the age of nine. The villages do not have permanent health clinics on site to provide basic health services, which makes the ambulance service all the more critical.
Adalah emphasized in the letter that women suffer the most from the lack of available emergency care, since they spend the majority of their time in the villages and are largely responsible for the wellbeing of both children and the elderly. Moreover, since most of the women do not have cars, it is crucial in the case of an injury or sudden sickness that they have access to reliable and accessible emergency ambulance and medical services.
The letter details various examples of incidents in which ambulances refused to enter an unrecognized village with tragic and sometimes fatal results. One incident involved a child who was injured in a car accident. His mother immediately called for an ambulance, but one never arrived and as a consequence of not receiving emergency medical treatment the child died. In another case, a woman from an unrecognized village in her 9th month of pregnancy called for an ambulance after going into labor. When the ambulance refused to come to the village, the woman walked to the main road to find public transportation. She gave birth to her child on a public bus. These preventable tragedies and dangerous situations are the direct result of the MDA's and grave violations of the right of the residents of unrecognized villages to life, health and dignity.
