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Jan. 26, 2007
Skills that will make a difference
Negev Bedouin Arabs are being taught how to save lives with emergency
aid in their unrecognized villages.
GAIL LICHTMAN ISRAEL PRESS SERVICE
Suliman Gaboa's three-year-old nephew was blowing up a balloon
when it burst. The young boy swallowed part of the balloon and started
to choke. His community of El Fora, an unrecognized Bedouin village
of 4,500 inhabitants in Israel's Negev region, has no health-care
services and none of the residents knew what to do. Since there
are no roads or infrastructure, ambulances do not enter the village,
forcing residents to bring the sick and injured to the main road.
"There was no one to help him," recalled Gaboa sadly.
"He couldn't breathe. We took him to the main road but it was
too late. He was pronounced dead in the ambulance."
Such personal encounters with tragedy were repeated again and again
by almost all of the 21 Bedouin Arab men who recently graduated
from a special first aid course for residents of unrecognized Bedouin
villages in the Negev.
"My neighbor's five-year-old daughter suffered kerosene burns,"
noted Aziz Abu Zalah of Wadi Naam, a village of 800, "but we
did not know how to treat her. Even though we managed to get her
to the hospital, she died of infection."
"My mother had a heart attack," related Saad Gaboa, also
of El Fora. "No one knew CPR. We lost precious time until we
reached the main road and the ambulance. By then, she was beyond
help."
The 44-hour, 10-meeting course, a joint endeavor of the Abraham
Fund Initiatives, Physicians for Human Rights and the Regional Council
for Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, comes in response to the
pressing emergency health-care problems of these Bedouin communities.
To date, three such first aid courses have been conducted by the
partners, all taught by a Bedouin instructor.
Two courses for men were held in Beersheba and one for women in
the unrecognized village of Awagan. The course imparts first aid
knowledge such as CPR, the Heimlich manoeuvre, how to stop bleeding,
the treatment of burns, the immobilization of injured extremities
and how to treat poisoning. It also includes information on diabetes,
high blood pressure and other relatively common healthcare problems.
Today, some 80,000 Bedouin Arabs live in 45 unrecognized villages
in the Negev, many of which were in existence before the establishment
of the state of Israel. The Israeli government has established seven
recognized Bedouin townships in the Negev and its plans call for
demolishing the other villages and relocating their residents to
one of these townships – a plan the residents oppose.
Because the government does not recognize these communities, they
do not appear on national maps and, consequently, do not have water
and sewage systems, electricity, access roads, health-care, education,
welfare or any other basic municipal services or infrastructure.
Unemployment in unrecognized villages hovers around the 25 per cent
mark and about half of the inhabitants are children - 60 per cent
of whom live in families with per capita incomes below the poverty
line.
It takes an average of 45 minutes for an ambulance to reach these
villages and, on many occasions, the ambulance will not enter because
there are no access roads.
In addition, a recent study conducted by the Jewish-Arab Advocacy
Initiative (established by the Abraham Fund and the Citizens' Accord
Forum) and by Safe Kids Israel/Beterem, an Israeli child safety
organization, found that approximately 70 per cent of children injured
in accidents in their home surroundings are Arab. Bedouin children
in particular are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized than any
other segment of the Israeli population.
Faced with this problem, the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages
in the Negev (RCUV), the democratically elected body representing
these Bedouin villages, decided to act. "We saw the need and
we looked around for how to remedy the situation," said Suliman
Abu Obayyid, the council's community organizer. "We decided
that the best solution for now is to train local residents who wish
to contribute to their communities and can act in emergencies and
save lives."
Thus far, 59 men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 50, have completed
the program and returned to their villages to provide emergency
first aid. The partners are hoping to run more courses in the near
future in order to increase the number of first aid providers to
at least 70.
Beyond first aid, an additional aim is to train agents for social
change who will put health-care issues on the Bedouin agenda.
"We are a population struggling to attain both human rights
and equality," explained Abu Obayyid. The RCUV's primary goal
is to have the unrecognized villages recognized by the Israeli government
and to attain for them the social, economic and health-care services
that recognized communities enjoy.
"The first aid program is one of several programs to improve
the quality of life of the Negev Bedouin Arabs in general and the
unrecognized villages in particular, with which we have been an
enthusiastic partner," said Lee Perlman, director of programs
and initiatives at the Abraham Fund Initiatives, a social change
organization dedicated to promoting an equitable and shared Jewish-Arab
society in Israel through advocacy and awareness campaigns, as well
as co-existence projects.
"The real answer lies in attaining equal and accessible emergency
services and basic health care, but this will take time. A solution
is needed now and it is incumbent upon the authorities to lead the
way towards significant progress in this effort."
Prof. Shaul Sofer, dean of the faculty of health and sciences at
Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a pediatrician at Beersheba's
Soroka Medical Centre and board member of Physicians for Human Rights,
was on duty the night Suliman Gaboa's nephew was brought in.
"We heard a little Bedouin boy was being brought in who was
choking, but unfortunately he was dead on arrival," said Sofer.
"This was a case where, if this child had received the right
care, he could almost certainly have been saved. I was pleased to
hear about the first aid course. Not only is it a practical way
to save lives, but it is an example of community enhancement."
The course has already saved at least one life. Abu Sabala of Ashabi
was able to save his three-year-old daughter who got a piece of
candy stuck in her throat. "I knew exactly what to do,"
he related. "I turned her upside down and hit her on the back.
I was able to bring the candy up and then pull it out of her mouth.
If I hadn't taken this course, things might have ended quite differently."
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