Dirty hypodermic needle infects Palestinian prisoner with disease

Thursday August 23, 2007 10:38 by Ali Samoudi - IMEMC News

The wife of Othman Suleiman, a Palestinian prisoner serving a lifetime sentence in Israeli detention camps, spoke with grave sorrow over the health condition of her husband.

The suffering, Mrs Suleiman says, started several months ago, when her husband, 33, became very sick, and was transported to a military hospital located near the detention camp he was held in. The Israeli doctors in the military hospital diagnosed Suleiman with an advanced case of the Hepatitis C liver disease.

According to Mrs Suleiman, several months ago, her husband was suffering from dental problems. After weeks and weeks of pain, doctors took him to the detention camp clinic, where he was injected using a used hypodermic needle, Israeli military sources confessed. A few days later, Suleiman's health deteriorated before he was transferred to the military hospital where they diagnosed his liver illness.

The Israeli doctors have admitted that the detention camp clinic was where he contracted the disease, but claimed that they do not have the treatment and he must travel to Egypt for treatment. The fact of Suleiman's incarceration inside Israel, however, makes this an impossibility.

Regardless of threats made by the administration and guards at the Israeli detention camp, Mr Suleiman has filed a law suit against the Israeli detention camp clinic. Mrs Suleiman says that her husband is being attacked and threatened frequently, and being denied access to food and water, in order to encourage him to drop the legal charges.

Currently, Suleiman has lost his ability to eat solid food, and is being fed using an intravenous drip. Mrs Suleiman appealed to the international, Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups to help save the life of her husband.

Translated by Ghassan Bannoura/IMEMC Newsroom

jenin | prisoners | news report ghassanb at imemc dot org