Jun, 2009
In a joint endeavor, Anera partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the summer of 2008 to renovate and upgrade the Rafidiya Hospital in the West Bank town of Nablus.
Rafidya’s location makes it a central hospital for the northern cities and villages in the West Bank. “People in the surrounding areas can get to us quickly and easily because of our strategic location,” said Dr. Khalid, director of Rafidya Hospital. The demand on the hospital’s medical services has increased due to closures and checkpoints – it is often overcrowded and has limited resources.
“The situation was miserable before USAID and Anera stepped in to help us.” said Dr. Khalid Yousef. Dr. Yousef insisted on the importance of renovating the hospital, which was built in 1975 and has not undergone comprehensive renovations since then.
Anera is redoing the plumbing on several floors as well as completely rehabilitating the maternity ward. Another small, but important improvement is the installation of special curtains in each room to provide patients with privacy. Before, “patients had no privacy, no doors for the rooms; they did not feel comfortable while recovering,” said Samiya Shayb, nursing manager at hospital.
Samiya supervises 180 nurses at Rafidya and remembers well “the catastrophic environment” in which her nurses had to work. Before Anera and USAID’s involvement, nurses experienced daily difficulties in providing compassionate humanitarian care to sickly and needy patients. “People cannot wait to see the new renovations.”
The hospital has 164 beds and performs 650 surgeries per month on average. “We used to work in inhuman and unhealthy circumstances, which resulted in infections in children at the hospital. I thank USAID and Anera for their joint efforts to renovate the hospital,” said Dr. Yousef.
