Seven ‘very sick’ Palestinian children arrive in Ireland for ‘urgent’ treatment
Seven “very sick” Palestinian children who need “urgent” treatment arrived in Ireland on Friday night, as part of a fifth medical evacuation mission to treat critically ill children from Gaza in Irish hospitals. The children and their carers were taken from Gaza to Jordan with the assistance of the World Health Organisation, before they met a team of Irish doctors who flew them to Dublin on a plane provided by the Norwegian government. Teams from Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) will now assess the children before they start treatment, including life-saving and life-changing procedures. A total of 27 critically sick children have been brought to Ireland since the Government first agreed to start carrying out medical evacuation missions for up to 30 children in September 2024. READ MORESaved by a stranger: The 100-year-old Irish man in London‘I was sleeping in a tent’: German man who ran away to Clare aged 14 Student with Down syndrome fails in disability discrimination case against NCADCork’s Pat Ryan: ‘I knew I was running on empty. I’ve only had two nights of unbroken sleep in the last year’Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said that it had been “a lengthy and complex operation, with several Government departments collaborating with our international partners”.Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee said that the children had “endured an unimaginable ordeal, and they urgently need specialist medical care. I am deeply relieved that they can now receive that care here in Ireland.”The Government has now almost reached its initial commitment to evacuate 30 children. According to the Department of Health, the Irish Government will “continue to opt in on a case-by-case basis for each child who requires treatment, subject to the necessary capacity being available at that time”.Children who come to Ireland for treatment are chosen from a list of prospective patients, which is compiled by WHO staff working on the ground in Gaza. Doctors in CHI help to decide which children their hospitals have the capacity to treat. Due to continuing pressures on Ireland’s scoliosis waiting lists, Ireland is not able to accept children from Gaza who need spinal surgeries. [ Thousands of children treated for acute malnutrition in Gaza since ceasefire, says UNOpens in new window ]The families from Gaza are being housed in Red Cross-provided accommodation, with the charity also working to help with translations and transport to hospital appointments. As well as caring for the children, the HSE will also carry out assessments of the carers who came with them. HSE national medical evacuation co-ordinator Dr Ciaran Browne said the children who were evacuated to Ireland “are still very sick and in need of urgent treatment”.“We immediately commenced treatment for some of the children even before they arrived in Ireland. We know that they will have a long road to recovery but they will receive world-class care at CHI.”Irish embassies in both Jordan and Ramallah helped co-ordinate the mission, as did the Jordanian Red Crescent, Médecins Sans Frontières, the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism and the government of Norway. The Department of Justice is co-ordinating visas for the children and their families and the Department of Social Protection is helping them to access welfare supports.
