PCHR Concludes Training Course on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote Right to Health”
Ref: 01/2021
Date: 14 January 2021
On Thursday, 14 January 2021, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded its 1st training course in 2021 on “Human Rights and Mechanisms to Promote Right to Health”. Twenty-four male and female students from the Faculty of Medicine and Nursing at the Islamic University participated in the 20-hour training course, which was held over the course of 4 days between 06 – 14 January 2021.
These training courses are held for the 3rd consecutive year, under “Promote, Respect, and Fulfill the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health in the Gaza Strip” project implemented by PCHR in partnership with the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) and funded by the European Union. These training courses will continue until the end of 2021 as a total of 8 courses are supposed to be held in 2021 targeting 200 the medical personnel and activists in the Gaza Strip.
The project aims to improve access to healthcare; provide legal counseling and legal assistance to the Palestinian patients; disseminate the culture of human rights and humanitarian law, particularly the right to health, by building the capacities of those working in the health sector; and to monitor, document and follow up violations of the right to health.
At the end of the course, PCHR held a closing ceremony where Abdel Halim Abu Samra, Head of PCHR’s Training Unit, emphasized the importance of holding training courses in the field of the right to health for the Medicine and Medical Sciences students and the medical personnel the health sector in order to improve the status of health sector in the Gaza Strip, which experiences ongoing deterioration of human rights conditions within the political, economic and health challenges due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Israeli closure along with the repercussions of the internal political division, warning of a collapse in the Gaza Health system. Abu Samra highlighted the importance of investing in medicine and health sciences students to improve the health sector in Gaza as well as their knowledge in human rights, particularly the right to health, that would bear fruit in their future career.
Omar al-Najjar, a student and Head of the Palestinian Medical Forum in the Gaza Strip, thanked PCHR, on behalf of the Forum, for its pioneering role in disseminating and promoting human rights culture and the right to health by following up with all competent authorities and holding training courses to promote the right to health in the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that the Forum aims to sustain and develop its relationship with PCHR for best interest of medicine students by helping them to improve their theoretical knowledge and impart scientific and practical skills in human rights.
