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Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine

The prolonged ongoing conflict in Palestine exacerbated socioeconomic conditions and weakened the health system, complicating the management of COVID-19 pandemic, especially for cancer patients who are doubly-at risk. Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) is Palestine's only specialized cancer hospit...

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Autores principales: Sabateen, Ali, Khalil, Merette, Abu El Hawa, Munia, Peeperkorn, Richard, Mataria, Awad, Ravaghi, Hamid
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9010458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35433608
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.873219
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author Sabateen, Ali
Khalil, Merette
Abu El Hawa, Munia
Peeperkorn, Richard
Mataria, Awad
Ravaghi, Hamid
author_facet Sabateen, Ali
Khalil, Merette
Abu El Hawa, Munia
Peeperkorn, Richard
Mataria, Awad
Ravaghi, Hamid
author_sort Sabateen, Ali
collection PubMed
description The prolonged ongoing conflict in Palestine exacerbated socioeconomic conditions and weakened the health system, complicating the management of COVID-19 pandemic, especially for cancer patients who are doubly-at risk. Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) is Palestine's only specialized cancer hospital, receiving patients from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for oncology, nephrology, hematology, and radiotherapy. AVH's preparedness measures enabled its agile response. These proactive and innovative preparedness measures included: implementing a facility-level preparedness and response plan; utilizing multidisciplinary team-based and evidence-informed approaches to decision making; prioritizing health workers' safety and education; establishing in-house PCR testing to scale up timely screenings; and accommodating health workers, patients, and their relatives at hospital hotels, to maintain daily, continuous and critical health care for cancer patients and limit the spread of infection. At the facility-level, the biggest challenge faced by AVH was continuing essential and daily care for immunocompromised patients while protecting them from potential infection from relatives, hospital staff and other suspected patients. At the national level, the lack of preparedness, inequalities in vaccine distribution, political instability, violence, delays in obtaining medical exit permits to reach Jerusalem, weakened AVH's response. AVH's flexible financing, hospital accreditation, and strong leadership and coordination enabled its agility and resilience. Despite compiling challenges, the hospital's proactive and innovative interventions minimized the risk of infection among two high-risk groups: the immunocompromised patients and their health workers, providing invaluable lessons for health facilities in other fragile-and-conflict-affected settings.
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spelling pubmed-90104582022-04-16 Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine Sabateen, Ali Khalil, Merette Abu El Hawa, Munia Peeperkorn, Richard Mataria, Awad Ravaghi, Hamid Front Public Health Public Health The prolonged ongoing conflict in Palestine exacerbated socioeconomic conditions and weakened the health system, complicating the management of COVID-19 pandemic, especially for cancer patients who are doubly-at risk. Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH) is Palestine's only specialized cancer hospital, receiving patients from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for oncology, nephrology, hematology, and radiotherapy. AVH's preparedness measures enabled its agile response. These proactive and innovative preparedness measures included: implementing a facility-level preparedness and response plan; utilizing multidisciplinary team-based and evidence-informed approaches to decision making; prioritizing health workers' safety and education; establishing in-house PCR testing to scale up timely screenings; and accommodating health workers, patients, and their relatives at hospital hotels, to maintain daily, continuous and critical health care for cancer patients and limit the spread of infection. At the facility-level, the biggest challenge faced by AVH was continuing essential and daily care for immunocompromised patients while protecting them from potential infection from relatives, hospital staff and other suspected patients. At the national level, the lack of preparedness, inequalities in vaccine distribution, political instability, violence, delays in obtaining medical exit permits to reach Jerusalem, weakened AVH's response. AVH's flexible financing, hospital accreditation, and strong leadership and coordination enabled its agility and resilience. Despite compiling challenges, the hospital's proactive and innovative interventions minimized the risk of infection among two high-risk groups: the immunocompromised patients and their health workers, providing invaluable lessons for health facilities in other fragile-and-conflict-affected settings. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9010458/ /pubmed/35433608 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.873219 Text en Copyright © 2022 Sabateen, Khalil, Abu El Hawa, Peeperkorn, Mataria and Ravaghi. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Sabateen, Ali
Khalil, Merette
Abu El Hawa, Munia
Peeperkorn, Richard
Mataria, Awad
Ravaghi, Hamid
Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title_full Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title_fullStr Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title_full_unstemmed Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title_short Proactive Innovation in a Prolonged Conflict Setting: Facing COVID-19 in a Specialized Cancer Hospital in Palestine
title_sort proactive innovation in a prolonged conflict setting: facing covid-19 in a specialized cancer hospital in palestine
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9010458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35433608
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.873219
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