A BABY boy in Gaza who featured in The Weekend Australian last Saturday has been flown to Turkey for emergency treatment.
Five-day-old Seraj Abu Jarad was in a critical condition in Gaza as the hospital had run out of the medication he needed for his heart condition.
Doctors said the medication was unavailable as it was not on the list of items Israel allows into Gaza and instead they were relying on supplies given unofficially by an aid worker.
He lay in Nasser Pediatric Hospital near 34-day-old Noor Taha, whose kidneys were failing but who could not be properly diagnosed because a tube had broken on a machine.
The hospital said it had been unable to get replacement tubes through Israeli checkpoints.
When Turkey heard of the case of Seraj Abu Jarad, arrangements were made for an ambulance to take him to Cairo then to be flown to Turkey. He is now in Turkey in a stable condition.
Noor Taha remains in a critical condition in Gaza.
Last Saturday’s Inquirer section detailed attempts by The Weekend Australian to expedite the boy’s transportation into Israel.
But bureaucratic problems between authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza and those in the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Hamas’s rival Fatah, and between Palestinian Authority and Israeli authorities prevented this.
Because Hamas authorities will not deal directly with Israel, any request for a patient to go from Gaza into Israel must go via the Palestinian Authority.
Israel this week announced an easing of the blockade. Instead of a list of items that are allowed, they would have a list of items not allowed and permit all other items.
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