On 30 July, 2007, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Arab Bedouin Villages in the Negev, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) petitioned the High Court of Justice to demand that primary healthcare clinics and family health stations operating in the unrecognized villages in the Negev be connected to the electricity grid. The petition, filed by ACRI Attorney Sonia Boulos, is directed against the Minister of Health, the General Health Services, the Israel Electric Corporation, the District Committee for Planning and Building in the Southern District, and the Abu Basma Committee for Planning and Building.
Atty. Boulos states in the petition that the failure to connect the clinics and family health stations to the electricity grid violates the right to health and equality to which residents of the unrecognized villages in the Negev are entitled. The irregular supply of electricity (the clinics are forced to rely on generators) significantly lowers the level of medical services provided to the villages’‘ residents compared with the services provided to the other residents of Israel.
Residents of the 45 unrecognized Negev villages, who now number approximately 80,000, have long suffered severe discrimination in access to health services. Until 1994, there was not a single clinic in any of these villages to serve the residents. Since then, 11 primary healthcare clinics have been built, most of them as a result of a joint petition filed on behalf of residents from some of the villages by ACRI, the two other signatories to the current petition, and the Negev Coexistence Forum. The villages that now contain health clinics and family health stations are: Abu Talul; Algarin; Al Zarnug; Um Batin; Um Matnan; Bir Hadaj; Darijat; Wadi Ghwain; Wadi Al Na’‘am; Abda; and Al Sar.
These clinics—which are still too few to meet the needs of the Bedouin population—are connected to the water supply, but their electricity is supplied through generators that only operate during the clinics’‘ opening hours. Given this irregular electricity supply, basic medicines and vaccines that require constant refrigeration cannot be stored in the clinics, as is the case in regular medical clinics. In addition, the intense summer heat in the Negev is liable to reduce the effectiveness of the other medications stored at the clinics, or to increase their toxicity, and could even contaminate medical equipment such as disinfection kits.
Atty. Boulos notes that the existing planning and building laws, as well as decisions reached by the National Council for Planning and Building in the Southern District, allow for connecting the clinics to the electricity grid. Nearly three years ago, a decision was taken that recognized the clinics as mobile, temporary structures that provide essential services, thereby entitling them to be connected to the electricity grid. The clinics in the villages of Al Zarnug, Bir Hadaj, Wadi Al Na’‘am, and Abda, could have been connected to the electricity grid before that decision was reached since they had the legally required building permits. However, this was not done, and to this day the clinics in these villages are still not connected to the electricity grid. The result is that the Health Ministry and the General Health Services have abrogated their responsibility, unequivocally defined by the Health Law and the Patient’‘s Rights Law, to provide health services at a suitable professional level and to ensure ready access to these services. In addition, the respondents are violating their obligation to act with due speed, which derives from the overall responsibility of government authorities to act fairly.
In light of the aforementioned, the High Court of Justice is requested to instruct that the clinics and family health stations be connected to the electricity grid.
