Qatar’s Hamad Medical Corporation hosts an entertainment event for evacuated Gaza patients, providing mental health support through activities and community engagement amidst ongoing Israeli conflict atrocities.
Qatar’s Hamad Medical Corporation’s Corporate Social Service held an entertainment event for Palestinians evacuated from Gaza to Doha for treatment, the Qatari entity announced in a statement on Sunday.
The event took place at the Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City Park and saw the attendance of Gaza’s patients in addition to representatives from private hospitals in Qatar.
Children got to enjoy colouring activities, competitions and a football show, all under the country’s wider efforts to enhance their mental health support.
“The Corporate Social Service at Hamad Medical Corporation considers this humanitarian mission a privilege, enabling us to apply the core ethics and principles of social work by empowering patients and fulfilling their holistic needs,” Bashayr Al-Rashid, Executive Director of the Corporate Social Service and chair of the Gaza patients Community Support Team at HMC, said.
Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani had announced an initiative on December 3, 2023, to sponsor 3,000 orphans and treat 1,500 injured Palestinians from the Strip.
As of Saturday, the Gulf state has evacuated 23 groups from Gaza, though the total figure of those in Doha remains unclear.
The Qatari government, along with other local entities, have been providing the evacuees with mental health and physical health treatment while hosting regular events to break their isolation.
“Through our dedicated efforts, we strive to alleviate the burden on patients and their families by offering a range of services tailored to their individual circumstances,” Al-Rashid added.
She noted that her department has been promoting cultural inclusivity and working to empower the Gaza patients’ community.
“Our approach emphasises the importance of community involvement and collective action in supporting patients to achieve health and well-being for all, in addition to creating a healthcare environment available to all,” Al-Rashid said.
Asma Ahmadi, a social worker at the Qatar Rehabilitation Institute and a member of Gaza patients Community Support Team, added that the main goal is to organise events that can help reduce the levels of stress, anxiety, and overthinking.
This comes as the evacuated Palestinians continue to monitor the horrors unfolding in Gaza, where some of their families and loved ones remained.
For nearly seven months, Israel persisted in its genocidal war in Gaza, killing at least 34,454 people and displacing at least 1.7 million people.
At least 17,000 children have been unaccompanied or separated from their parents in Gaza since the beginning of the war. A total of one million children, more than half of Gaza’s population, require mental health and psycho-social support, according to the United Nations’ flash update.
Almost 70 children have been getting injured in Gaza every day since the beginning of Israel’s brutal war on October 7, 2023, according to figures shared by UNICEF on April 16.
“These children have become the faces of the ongoing war. From devastating injuries sustained in airstrikes, to the trauma of being caught in violent clashes, their stories paint a harrowing picture of the human consequences of conflict,” Tess Ingram, UNICEF Communication Specialist, said at the time.
More than 10 children per day have lost one or both of their legs in Gaza since the beginning of the war, Save the Children said on January 7.
Medics in Gaza carried out the majority of the amputations without anaesthetic or proper medical tools due to the extreme shortage of equipment under Israel’s complete blockade.
The Israeli genocidal war has left Gaza with only 11 partially operating hospitals out of an initial 36, including the Al-Shifa Medical Complex—the largest in the Strip and one of the biggest facilities in Palestine.
Under Israel’s efforts to deprive Palestinians of life-saving assistance, occupation forces killed 491 health workers, 252 aid workers, 183 UN staff, and 27 Palestinian Red Crescent members, according to the UN’s latest flash update.
