Brussels MP Nadia El Yousfi (PS) asks Brussels hospitals and authorities to anticipate a medical airlift that would transfer wounded people from Gaza. However, no specific request has yet been received.
Neighboring Egypt is bracing for an influx of injured people from the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder (PS) confirmed in Parliament on Thursday that an airlift to transfer injured people to Belgian hospitals is a possibility. Air transports with relief supplies and medical equipment are already underway towards Egypt. In a second phase, Defense could set up a field hospital in Egypt. Flying injured people to Belgium could be a third support measure. In that case, the Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Neder-Over-Heembeek is the logical first reception point.
“The Queen Astrid Military Hospital is ready, if the Egyptian authorities request it, to receive injured people in the burns department. However, such a request has not yet been formulated,” Minister Dedonder said in Parliament. “In collaboration with Public Health, we have also indicated that we are ready to accommodate other injured people in various hospitals or healthcare facilities in the country.” The federal government believes that an international evacuation of injured people from Gaza is best organized within a European framework and following an official request from the World Health Organization (WHO).
French example
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday that France is prepared to receive up to fifty injured or sick children for urgent care. “France will mobilize all the resources at its disposal, in particular air assets, so that they can be treated in France, if useful and necessary,” Macron stated.
Brussels MP Nadia El Yousfi (PS) would like to see the Brussels Region “sign up in this important international solidarity action”. In the same breath, she also advocates consultation between the Brussels government and the federal level to make this practical and financially feasible for the Brussels hospitals, which are known to be short on cash.
It would not be a first. Also in 2009, Belgium established a limited medical air bridge with Egypt to transfer injured children from the Gaza Strip to the military hospital of Neder-over-Heembeek and hospitals in Brussels.
This article is originally published on bruzz.be
