Israel’s ruthless aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in Palestine has critically injured many, and the bombing has also devastated medical infrastructure, increasing the load on existing medical facilities which themselves are running on scarce resources. Hence women doctors from Pakistan and over a dozen countries joined hands with their counterparts through a technology-driven initiative to provide medical support and care to thousands of people afflicted by Israeli aggression in Gaza and other bombed cities.
What Happened: Some two years ago a project named ‘eDoctor’ was initiated for around 35,000 female doctors who had completed their medical education at the expense of the state or privately but were unable to practice medicine due to social or domestic constraints. The project was initiated by one of the oldest public sector medical universities in the country, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), which has so far succeeded in bringing back to the profession hundreds of Pakistani lady doctors. As Israeli aggression mounted, they contacted the humanitarian and aid organizations in the areas under attack and succeeded to build a platform for telemedicine to clinics in almost all major cities of Palestine, currently catering to patients in Gaza, West Bank, and Ramallah. In order to prevent the language barrier from becoming an impediment in the provision of services, Arabic-speaking female doctors from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan were taken onboard and connected with the system to aid the Pakistani doctors in understanding the medical problems of the Palestinian people.
The Impact: Currently, more than 150 doctors have been recruited from Pakistan for this particular cause. Doctors from around the world including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc have also been inducted into the system to contribute to providing medical aid to Palestinians during these challenging times.