A MEDICAL initiative set up by an SNP MP is helping to transform the lives of Palestinian women living with breast cancer.
The Scottish-Palestinian medical bridge project, which marked its second anniversary last month, was established after Dr Philippa Whitford, who is a breast cancer surgeon as well as the SNP’s health spokeswoman at Westminster, witnessed first hand how Israel’s blockade and closure of Gaza was damaging the care available to patients.
It sees teams of radiologists, oncologists, cancer nurses and surgeons from Scotland give up their holidays to travel to the occupied territory – the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
They perform operations and teach the latest techniques used in the UK to local doctors – at all stages of treatment from diagnosis to after-care – to provide effective care and improve outcomes for patients.
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The support continues once the volunteers return home, with a video conference between Scotland and Gaza at 7am every Tuesday morning to plan the week’s treatments and a similar partnership being developed for clinicians in the West Bank.
Speaking about the work’s progress to mark Breast Cancer Awareness month, Whitford said: “The progress in just two years has been remarkable, particularly in Gaza. Women are now properly diagnosed before surgery, allowing better planning of their treatment. Surgical practice has also changed, with breast conservation replacing mastectomy for patients with smaller tumours. Undergoing a mastectomy affects not just a woman’s health but her self esteem and confidence, so it is important that more Palestinian women have the option of breast conservation if clinically appropriate.”
Dr Whitford led on the development of the first Scottish clinical audit standards for breast cancer in 2000, and is now working with Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map) to develop the same in Palestine, to enable medics there to better measure their performance and medical outcomes.
The work has proven vital in Gaza, where many clinicians are prevented from travelling to external conferences or training, leaving them cut off from many advances in cancer treatment and with less opportunity to update their professional skills.
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Just 15% of Palestinian health workers who applied for exit permits to leave Gaza were granted them by the Israeli authorities last year.
Whitford and her husband Hans previously worked in Gaza in 1991-1992 as medical volunteers with Map, and she returned to conduct a breast cancer needs assessment soon after being elected MP for Central Ayrshire.
She witnessed how shortages of essential medicines and equipment – including limited stocks of chemotherapy drugs and the lack of local radiotherapy services – were undermining the care Palestinian cancer specialists can offer their patients.
She also heard how Israel’s frequent denial of exit permits prevents patients travelling to Palestinian hospitals outside Gaza where services are available, such as the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem.
Last year, 39% of permit requests for patients needing to leave Gaza for medical treatment were denied or delayed by the Israeli authorities, meaning that appointments were missed. In 2017, 54 patients from Gaza died after missing scheduled medical appointments, 46 of whom had cancer.
Reflecting on what she witnessed in 2016 on returning to Gaza after 25 years, Whitford said: “I was shocked to find that, regardless of the size or stage of disease, every single woman I met had undergone a radical mastectomy and axillary node clearance. This is an approach that had not been the routine practice in the UK for more than 20 years, and it had left half of them suffering with severe arm swelling known as lymphoedema.”
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