Medical Centres in Palestine

Bethlehem SOS Medical Centre

The SOS Medical Centre, Bethlehem helps orphaned and vulnerable children and their families in the local community. It is a mobile centre that works in three major cities of Palestine - Jericho, Jerusalem and Ramallah. The SOS Medical Centre works with families, local associations, schools and community leaders to support and help more than 2,500 children and their families traumatised by the ongoing tension in the region.

Bethlehem SOS Social Centre

SOS Bethlehem opened the first SOS Psycho-Social Medical Mobile Centre in 2003 as a response to the harsh political situation here in Palestine and the traumatic effects the Israeli Occupation has had on children’s lives throughout Palestine.  The mobile centre spent a full year in the Salfit district due to the fact that SOS Children was the only entity providing psycho-social services to the community.  Currently there are five permanent Psycho-Social Relief Centres in the West Bank located in Nablus (operating since July 2005), Khalil (operating since September 2005), Jenin (operating since May 2006), Jericho (operating since June 2006), and Ramallah (operating since September 2007).  In October of this year a third location was opened in Dura, Khalil district due to the great need within this district. The area is the most populated Palestinian district with many villages and a very conservative society that needs much work to address psycho-social issues.

Each centre is staffed with a social worker and psychologist and a psychiatrist who is meant to visit each centre once a week.  The centres provide social and psychological services to children and their caregivers.  These activities include: workshops and seminars for women and children, counseling sessions for women and children, weekly group therapy sessions, individual sessions, and weekly psychological support for children.  The workshop topics vary from a child/youth development issues to personal development issues such as dealing with depression, marital counseling, and other important issues. 

The centres also conduct outreach activities that include visiting of local schools (government and private), nursery schools, women’s centres, home visits, and meetings with other local and international psycho-social centres.  The objective of such outreach activities is to provide guidance and awareness to the local community.  Our centres also regularly host university students who are training in psychology and sociology as part of their study hours. We receive university students from Al-Quds Open University, Jerusalem University, Bir Zeit University, and Al Najah University. 

The mobile centre worked hard to combat the extremely conservative community in Salfit and the resultant social stigma around psycho-social disorders.  The centre staff worked directly with families, mothers, schools, community leaders, and the mayor to spread awareness.  Throughout the year a total of 3,614 child cases were seen, counseling was offered to 709 mothers, a total of eight training programmes were held, and 880 blood tests were analysed. 

The table below shows the various statistics from all the centres broken up by region and type of case.  In 2008 a total of 45,533 cases were dealt with in our six centres.  The most common problems noted among children are Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), social phobias, depression, and behavioral disorders.  The centres reported an increase in psycho-social trauma and stress from the previous year.    

The psycho-social team participated in national workshops with Palestinian universities, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and the Psychiatrics Association in order to support professional development.  In addition a four-day workshop was hosted in Bethlehem with our psycho-social team and three other organisations on addressing children with special needs- this was funded by Yale University.

Several of our staff attended an International Congress of Mental Health Co-workers held in Istanbul with funds from the International Association for child & Adolescence Mental Health.  SOS Psycho-Social Relief Centre programme co-ordinator participated in a conference in Dubai about depression and a conference in Cyprus about psychoanalyses.

The centres also hosted student volunteers throughout the year including 26 students for training hours and three graduate students.  

Gaza SOS Social Centre

The centre is based in Gaza and helps orphaned and vulnerable chidren and their families in the local community. The SOS Social Centre was set up in September 2004. Its aim is to help the prevention of abandonment by supporting vulnerable children and their families.