As COVID-19 spread across the occupied Palestinian territory, the Hugo Chavez Hospital was turned into the COVID-19 treatment and isolation centre for patients from Ramallah District. Dr Bassel Bawatneh, the hospital’s Acting Director, found himself both serving as a medical professional and performing social care to help fill the gap in hospital staff to carry out all the necessary duties.

In March 2021, Dr Bawatneh found his retired Arabic language teacher, Mohammed Mhanna, critically ill in one of the wards. He visited Mohammed’s bedside regularly, providing friendship, comfort and kindness until Mohammed succumbed to the disease. Despite the tragic circumstances, Dr Bawatneh knew that Mohammed was pleased that one of his former students was looking after him.

“More than half my time is given to social support for elderly people. It’s hard for them to understand why their children can’t visit. If we don’t focus on the social aspect of our elderly patients, we might lose them. I cannot lose a patient with respiratory problems just because of lack of social support, so we try to control all other aspects in order to give them the medical care they need,” said Dr Bawatneh.

WHO, through the Universal Health Coverage Partnership (UHC Partnership), is working closely with the Ministry of Health to support the development of the hospital sector. This is part of overall efforts to strengthen the health system, enhance linkages to primary health care (PHC), and make progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Hospitals are crucial for achieving UHC

Hospitals, combined with effective PHC, are essential in achieving UHC. In practice, this means that an effective PHC system, operating within or closer to communities, serves as the first point of contact of patients and their pathway to hospital care. This can be improved through strengthening the referral system, which will send patients from PHC to hospital and vice versa.

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