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Ghost Hospitals Reveal Corruption in Palestinian Authority Health Sector
(The Jewish Chronicle - UK) David Rose - It is a tale of two ghost hospitals. The first containing state-of-the-art medical equipment but almost no doctors or patients. The other is a 50-acre hole in the ground. Both were high-prestige health projects, launched with loud fanfares by the Palestinian Authority; indeed, the gleaming edifice is named after its president, Mahmoud Abbas. But the two-year-old Mahmoud Abbas general hospital in Halhul, near Hebron, lies deserted, due to incompetence and corruption. And the Khaled Hasan Cancer Center in Surda, northeast of Ramallah - intended as one of the finest cancer units in the Middle East - will never arise from the hole in the ground. Here too, millions have been wasted. The ghost hospitals are grotesque symbols of the cronyism and wastage that dogs the PA health sector, which has soaked up more than 200 million pounds of British taxpayers' cash since 2008.