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Dubai: Nineteen children in Palestine are now able to walk - some for the first time, thanks to a medical team from Dubai, who went there to help disabled children without access to medical care.
Gillian Beale, an orthopaedic operating theatre nurse from Dubai, Dr Marc Sinclair, a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Medcare Hospital together with his anaesthesiologist brother Dr David Sinclair from Germany weathered Israeli checkpoints to do their one-week stint at a hospital in Jericho as part of their work with the Dubai-based Little Wings Foundation.
While there, the three performed 19 operations, worth Dh299,000 in Dubai, and provided consultations for 60 other children from 1 to 16 years of age free of charge.
Dr Sinclair, who is also co-founder of the foundation, told Gulf News there was a need to help children in Palestine to walk.
"Before, they were not able to walk. One child had a club foot, another was deformed after surgery."
Suffering
Dr Sinclair said many cases should have been treated as soon as the children were born. However, the political situation in the land, at war with the occupying forces of Israel, has not allowed the children to get the treatment they needed. He added Israeli forces even prevented them from seeing two children, who had been picked by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, because they were from Gaza, which is under siege.
The lack of access worked both ways. Doctors were also restricted from providing medical care.
"This one doctor who was working with us - one night we were working quite late, and he had to leave because he has a curfew on him," said Beale.
Her first time in Palestine, Beale told Gulf News the suffering of the Palestinian children was one of the hardest things she had to see.
"It's hard to see children that are in pain and can't walk. To see that and know they can be fixed- but because of lack of money and the political situation, children are denied access to care that is basic for children in industrialised countries," she said.
Despite the obstacles the team plans to travel to Palestine in October or November to operate on and see more children. This time, they hope to bring a bigger team and more supplies, from funds they plan to raise with a Gala Dinner on May 22 at the Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel.
Mission to walk without pain
The Little Wings Foundation also plans to bring a few Palestinian children, whose cases are too complex to be treated in Palestine, to Dubai.
Dr Sinclair said he wanted to bring a 12-year old boy to Dubai so that he could finally walk without pain.
"We saw a child with a clubfoot, he has had to walk on the side of his foot so he had a big hole [through] the skin, muscle, right up to the bone because he has had to walk on it for the past 12 years", he said.
He said the boy could have been treated in Palestine, provided he had time to allow the "hole" on the side of his foot to heal. However, that was not possible as the family did not have funds to provide him with a wheelchair and medical care while the muscle and skin regrew.
"We will do the procedure and get a plastic surgeon to do a skin flap in Dubai," he added.
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