MIDDLE EAST: St. Luke's Hospital in Nablus breathes new life in service to Palestinians
Episcopal News Service. June 27, 2008 [062708-05]
Matthew Davies
The healthcare and wellbeing of the Palestinian community is at the heart of the ministry at St. Luke's Hospital in Nablus, established in the late 1800s and now in the heart of the West Bank. The diocesan hospital is beginning a new chapter of service under the leadership of Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil S. Dawani in concert with the other diocesan hospital, Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.
Only two months ago the hospital, one of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem's 37 institutions, was struggling to keep its doors open, "but today is finding new life and has really turned a corner," said Bishop Robert O'Neill, of the Diocese of Colorado, who was visiting Jerusalem June 18-25 at Dawani's invitation.
O'Neill, who is a member of the board of Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), was pleased to see first hand what ERD's support is accomplishing in its grants of $50,000 for the General Hospital director, $41,000 for the essential Medical Equipment in the new Emergency Room, and $50,000 for the second year in support of the director. On July 2, the Emergency Room will be dedicated by Dawani in the presence of the Rt. Rev. Gayle Harris, suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, and Dr. Hisham Nassar, diocesan healthcare consultant to the bishop.
"Although there are other hospitals that work on a for-profit and a pay basis, here is a hospital that will treat anyone regardless of their faith, regardless of their ability to pay," said O'Neill, who visited Nablus June 24 with Dawani and the Rev. Canon Samir J. Habiby, the bishop's special assistant and a long-time supporter of the healthcare ministries in the diocese. "It's truly a group of people that are serving the poorest among us and the witness is incredible," continued O'Neill. "That is emblematic of the work that the Anglican Church in Jerusalem does."
The diocese's institutions throughout the Holy Land provide services to Palestinian Christians and Muslims and include hospitals, clinics, kindergartens and schools, vocational training programs, and provide services for the deaf, the disabled and the elderly.
These institutions receive assistance from the hard-pressed diocesan budget as well as from the Episcopal Church's companion dioceses, American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, and from other Anglican and Ecumenical partners in Britain, Canada, the European mainland, Australia and New Zealand.
The new clinic at St. Andrew's Church in Ramallah is being built by funds from the United Thank Offering. The Diocese of Los Angeles is assisting with the new Home for the Elderly in Beir Zeit, and the Diocese of Massachusetts has provided the funds for a soft loan to help complete the St. Andrew's Ecumenical Housing Project in Ramallah.
The Episcopal Church, as well as the Church of England societies, the [Presbyterian] Church of Scotland, and the Anglican Church of Australia, provides stipendiary missionaries and Volunteers for Mission. This support helps shoulder a portion of the heavy financial burdens of the diocese in its communal services provided to the needy and the displaced.
O'Neill described the diocese as "a body that builds bridges of reconciliation across all the lines that threaten to separate and divide us. They work tirelessly for peace, reconciliation and unity and in that sense they are the very embodiment of Anglicanism."
Some of the diocese's institutions were left in a relatively poor financial shape by Dawani's predecessor, Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal.
"But we have a new spirit within the diocese," said Dawani, "and we will look to the future and move forward with integrity as we strive for stability and security for our institutions."
As a Christian community in a region marked by division and conflict, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem is "dealing daily with life and death issues, with promoting peace and justice, and upholding the heritage of the indigenous Christian community that is a minority here but has been an integral part of this land since the first century," said Dawani. "We work with humility to build and strengthen relationships with people of the three Abrahamic Faiths -- Christians, Muslims and Jews. In this city of peace, we remain a living, vibrant and serving Christian community."
O'Neill described his time in Jerusalem as inspiring. "It's amazing to realize that the Christian community here in Jerusalem and the Middle East is itself a minority," he said. "Within that, the Anglican Christian community is still a smaller spectrum, and yet the work that is accomplished by this small, yet extraordinarily faithful community is nothing short of miraculous."