La mucoviscidose en Palestine

Abstract

Cystic fibrosis is a rare hereditary genetic disease that requires demanding treatments. If patient care has undergone considerable improvement in so-called "Northern" countries, the situation in "Southern" countries is much less favourable. There, the conditions of patient care vary significantly. This article considers the experience and patient care for Cystic Fibrosis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, characterized by limited resources and heavy political constraints. The disease is unknown in the public, diagnosis is often belated and patient care is largely dysfunctional. We present an overview of the situation of Cystic Fibrosis in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. We then move forward to describe how the disease is lived by the patients’ families as well as caregivers: the article shows that political conditions owing to Israeli occupation in particular play a major role in making access to patient
care difficult and possibly in causing patients to abandon treatment.