In a June 25 Court hearing of a petition demanding healthcare clinics and family health stations in 11 Bedouin villages be connected to the electricity grid, the Health Ministry pronounced its commitment to ensure that medication which requires refrigeration be made available in all the villages.
The petition was submitted in July 2007 to the High Court of Justice by ACRI, together with the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Arab Bedouin Villages in the Negev and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. The petitioners stressed that the failure to connect the clinics and family health stations to the electricity grid is a violation of the right to health and equality. The irregular supply of electricity (the clinics are forced to rely on generators) significantly lowers the quality of medical services provided to the villages’ residents in comparison with the services provided to other Israelis.
In the High Court hearing, ACRI refuted the State’s claims that as health stations across Israel’s rural areas provide only basic services, those found in the Bedouin villages offer sufficient health services. ACRI argued that as the Bedouin villages included in the petition are not connected to the electricity grid, residents cannot store in their homes medication that needs regular refrigeration – a problem that rural health stations in other areas of the country do not face.
ACRI also argued before the Court that the dire conditions of roads and public transportation connecting the villages to larger towns with more advanced medical services present additional obstacles for residents when seeking health care, forcing them to rely on local clinics. This situation affects the daily lives of vulnerable members of the community such as chronically ill patients and young babies and children.
In the hearing in June, the Health Ministry announced its intentions to demand that Clalit Health Fund – the main service provider for those 11 villages – formulate a new plan that will ensure that medication which requires refrigeration will be made available in the clinics and health stations of the villages included in the petition. In addition, the State said, three of the 11 clinics will be relocated in coming months to permanent structures connected to the electricity grid.
The Court accepted the State’s commitment and announced the petition closed. ACRI will continue to monitor the implementation of this commitment and to ensure that the right to health of residents of the 11 Bedouin villages is respected.
