Medical treatment for Gazans

Now that former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmund Tutu is speaking out so openly about the situation in Gaza, one can only hope that more attention will be focused on this atrocity that unfolds every day under the blind eye of the world... I hate to say that I'm not too hopeful, though.

The medical aspect of the disaster is only one of many aspects, of course, but it is equally shocking...
from the BBC:

"Applying for treatment in Israel from Gaza is a complicated process - a patient is first put in touch with the Palestinian Referral Abroad Department (RAD), which has to arrange an appointment with an Israeli hospital before issuing a referral abroad request; the patient must then contact the Palestinian health District Co-ordination Office (DCO), which in turn asks the Israeli health DCO for a permit to pass through Erez crossing.
From there the request is sent to the office of the Co-ordinator of Activities in the Territories (West Bank and Gaza), where Israel's domestic security service examines whether the patient poses a security risk.
If the permit is granted, the patient goes to the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing, where a Palestinian Liaison Officer co-ordinates with an Israeli Liaison Officer to get the patient across.
Even at this point, a patient might end up not crossing if delays there mean they have missed their allotted hospital appointment time, or if the Israeli side of the crossing closes for security reasons.
If a patient fails to cross, he or she must start the referral process again from the beginning.

According to the WHO, 32 Gazans died between October 2007 and March 2008 while waiting for travel permits."

And how many Israelis have died as a result of the rockets that are fired into Israeli territory from Gaza (which is the official reason for most attacks on and raids into Gaza - the cause of many medical cases in Gaza): "According to Israel there have been 13 fatalities in the last six years."

Unfortunately, one can argue that the Gazans have partly their colleagues to blame, because the flip side is this:

"In 2004, a female suicide bomber who claimed she had surgical plates in her legs blew herself up at the [Erez] crossing after bypassing the metal detector, killing four Israelis."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7375439.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7208969.stm