In 2019, UPA, the Australian government, and the Thalassemia Patient’s Friends Society teamed up to save the lives of thalassemia patients in the West Bank.

Thalassemia is a lethal blood disorder that destroys red blood cells in the body. Children who are born with this disease must go to the hospital periodically to get blood transfusions. However, blood transfusions come with a risk: they may cause iron overload in the body, which is deadly if left undetected.

While the Palestine Medical Complex (PMC) in Ramallah had the medicine to remedy iron overload, they did not have the technology to detect it. As a result, many Palestinian children have died due to cardiac arrest from iron overload.

To remedy the situation, UPA, with the support of the Australian Direct Aid Program, purchased MRI software that allows medical personnel at the PMC to easily and accurately detect iron overload. Thalassemia patients are now able to receive medicine for iron overload before it becomes too late to treat.

The first person to use this software was a thalassemia patient named Taqie, who has lived with thalassemia for 28 years. He had an elder brother who died from thalassemia at the age of one and a half, so Taqie grew up with parents who were incredibly anxious about his health. He recalls that when he was a child, his skin would turn “blackish or bluish” due to the excess of iron in his system.

“We, thalassemia patients, refer to this disorder as ‘the iron disease,’ rather than thalassemia or blood anemia,” Taqie said. Without the software, detecting iron overload was an excessively painful and dangerous process, so much so that patients just refused to do it, even at the cost of their lives.

“[This software] is exactly the right motivation we always dreamt of to assure patients not to be afraid anymore of any painful tests,” Taqie said. “Here we finally have all we need to know about our situation in the most efficient, accurate and painless way… This move saved us pain, regression in health, money and time.”

We would like to thank the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for their generous contribution to sustaining the welfare of Palestinian patients by making this lifesaving technology readily available to them. We would also like to acknowledge the Palestinian medical personnel at PMC and the advocates at the Thalassemia Patient’s Friends Society who work tirelessly to promote the wellbeing of thalassemia patients, and who have made incredible progress over the last twenty years in treating and eradicating thalassemia.

The “Transforming the Lives of Palestinian Patients” project was supported by the Australian Government and implemented by United Palestinian Appeal, in partnership with the Thalassemia Patient’s Friends Society.