With a loud drum roll, the Dutch Ambassador to Lebanon is welcomed at the Safad Hospital in Baddawi, a Palestinian refugee camp. The once run-down hospital is now completely renovated, paid for with Dutch funds. The official re-opening ceremony was held on Wednesday.

“The policy of the Dutch government is to help those who suffer the most and to offer impartial humanitarian help,” said Ambassador Gerard Jan van Epen before he cut the red ribbon.

Pictures in the foyer illustrate how miserable the situation in the hospital actually was. Leaking ceilings, broken tiles, a lack of proper equipment and unhygienic conditions were major problems. When large numbers of wounded patients were brought in two years ago after the bombing of nearby Nahr al-Bared Camp, the humanitarian challenge facing the hospital became even more daunting. The need for hospital care grew by 600 percent.

Bombings
“Safad is the only hospital in North Lebanon where the region’s 64,000 Palestinian refugees can be helped,” Doctor Abdulaziz al-Bekai explains. As director of the hospital at the time of the bombings, he witnessed injured area residents pouring in.

The fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a group inspired by al-Qaeda, started at the end of May 2007 and lasted 15 weeks. Approximately 40,000 Nahr al-Bared residents fled the bombings which killed 100 people. Going to the nearby refugee camp was a logical step.

Crowded camp
Because Nahr al-Bared is still undergoing reconstruction, many refugees remain in the crowded camp with as many as twenty people living in the small houses. It’s a situation that greatly increases the risk of spreading disease which makes the hospital even more crucial.

“It was a great help to us that the hospital could be kept running for a year thanks to Dutch funding. And the standards have greatly improved. Everything used to be terribly old and the chance of infection was high,” says Gerard Jonkman, the spokesman for the Dutch Red Cross in Lebanon, while giving a tour of the 33-bed hospital.

Mr Jonkman met with doctors from the Palestine Red Crescent Society for months to figure out how to best spend the 500,000 euros donated by the Dutch Foreign Ministry. “We’ve done a lot with the money. We now have optimal quality for as little money as possible.”

Filthy bathrooms
Mr Jonkman points out the many ceilings which had collapsed due to water leakage. “There were only filthy bathrooms and dirty, unhygienic rooms,” he says as he heartily greets the doctors. “Patients now stay in much better conditions. I’m proud of the new operating theatre, the new equipment and the new out patient ward. Everything is much brighter and more welcoming,” he says.

“We are very grateful to the Netherlands. It’s a tremendous improvement. The hospital is still small, but at least it’s now well-equipped,” says Doctor al-Bekai. He stresses the medical consequences of the complicated situation in which the country’s estimated 375,000 Palestinian refugees find themselves. Most of them fled to Lebanon in 1948 where they have been living, spread out amongst Lebanon’s twelve refugee camps, ever since.

Stress
Considering that most Palestinian refugees have not received Lebanese citizenship, they are stateless. They are not allowed to work or own a home, and going to school is difficult because of the high costs. Their situation is worse than that of refugees in Syria and Jordan. “That is extremely stressful,” according to Doctor al-Bekai. “The amount of stress-related illness is abnormally high here.”