Last update - 00:00 23/03/2008
Health Ministry requests urgent funds for refugee health care
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri on Sunday asked the Director General of the Prime Minister's Bureau Ra'anan Dinur for an immediate NIS seven million budget, designated for treating Africans who have infiltrated Israel illegally, many of whom suffer from contagious and chronic diseases.
Health Ministry officials believe that the request will be granted.
The purpose of the requested budget is to treat African infiltrators and refugees, vaccinate them, test them for HIV and AIDS, hospitalize those suffering from tuberculosis, hepatitis and cancer and to deliver babies. The Health Ministry estimates that among the infiltrators currently in Israel, some 100 of them suffer from AIDS, and dozens have cancer.
The organization "Physicians for Human Rights" welcomed Ben Yizri's initiative as the first step toward taking responsibility for the thousands of Africans who have entered Israel over the last 18 months.
In an attempt to force the state to provide medical care to infiltrators, some of whom have fled persecution and others are seeking employment, the organization shut down its free clinic in southern Tel Aviv, which served this population for many years. The clinic was closed as an act of protest, but the closure also stemmed from an overload of patients due to a recent surge in infiltration of Africans across Israel's border with Egypt.
The Health Ministry hoped that volunteer organizations would continue to take upon themselves the care for this population. The ministry said Sunday that they had offered Physicians for Human Rights financial assistance to help lighten the load, but the organization said that the problem was not financial, because the organization was based entirely on volunteers. "Two-three volunteer doctors can't give the kind of care needed for the hundreds that come here every night," the organization's spokesman said.
Hundreds of African refugees hope to make it to Israel. Dozens have been detained over the past year and at least six have been killed this year by Egyptian border guards.
Africans began trickling into Israel in 2005, after Egyptian authorities quashed a demonstration by a group of Sudanese refugees. In recent months, the number has surged as word spread of job opportunities in Israel.
More than 7,000 African migrants have entered the Jewish state illegally in just over a year, including at least 2,000 since January, according to U.N. officials in Israel.
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