T*

When you come around the corner of the long corridor and enter ward 4C at the Selayang Hospital, you can hear some of the patients moaning. In that ward you can find men who are in great pain, some dying. It is a ward where “pain management” is the cornerstone of medical treatment.

So when I went there to visit one of “our” patients, I could hear the long drawn-out moaning long before I could see that T* had the curtains pulled all around his bed. The nurse asked me if I wanted to talk to T* and then pulled the curtain away from the bed to announce me, a visitor.

Apart from MSRI’s interpreter/translator Mohammad, T* had no visitors during his whole stay at Selayang Hospital. He has no family here, only very few friends, he is a Palestinian refugee who suffers from Buerger’s Disease.

We had come to know about him in the course of a survey that MSRI is doing among the refugee community in Kuala Lumpur. One afternoon in July, I got a phone call from our researcher, who told me with agitation in his voice that he has just met one of the people he was supposed to interview and found that that man, T*, had gangrenous feet and fingers.



I immediately phoned one of the doctors who extend medical care to people referred by MSRI to them. He suggested to bring the patient to a private hospital. We did that, and T* was seen by three specialists there. He was then referred to Putrajaya Hospital. From there he was referred to Selaying Hospital, to Dr. Mary Cardoza, a pain specialist.

Buerger’s disease is a relatively rare disease which is very little known. It is thought to be an auto immune disease which is triggered by a substance in tobacco. The initial symptoms are pain induced by insufficient blood flow in feet and hands, which may radiate into other parts of the body; numbness and tingling in fingers, toes, hands and feet; extremities turning white when cold; skin ulceration and gangrene of the fingers and toes. Pain may be very intense in the affected limbs.



There is no known cure for the disease, only some treatment for the symptoms. As the illness has a ‘tobacco connection’ any further primary or secondary contact with tobacco has to be prevented as this would aggravate the situation. Ultimately, if the progress of the disease cannot be stopped, the affected limbs have to be amputated.

T* is a young man who just has turned 30 this year. His family is originally from Gaza, but he grew up in Jordan. He is a Palestinian refugee.

The last time he was discharged from the hospital, on the way back to his squalid little room, he told me: “You know, before I had many dreams for my life. Now I have only one: to be able to walk again!”

What lies ahead for T*? How will his future be? Does he have a future?

He left Jordan, the place he was born and grew up in, because as Palestinian with a temporary passport T* did not qualify for medical treatment. He came to Malaysia because it was the only country for which he did not need a visa. But his ultimate aim is to be resettled by UNHCR to a third country, if possible, to Germany because there is a doctor in Germany who has assured T* that he could cure him of his disease. And that is T*’s one remaining dream. Can it be fulfilled?

On 8 December of this year, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees in the Near East will be 60 years old. This agency was set up as a response to the suffering of the Palestinian people displaced and disempowered after the partition of Palestine - in UNRWA’s own words: “UNRWA is unique in terms of its long-standing commitment to one group of refugees and its contributions to the welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees. Originally envisaged as a temporary organization, the Agency has gradually adjusted its programmes to meet the changing needs of the refugees. Today, UNRWA is the main provider of basic services - education, health, relief and social services - to over 4.6 million registered Palestine refugees in the Middle East.” (from: http://www.un.org/unrwa/overview/index.html).

Where there is no UNRWA office – like e.g. in Malaysia – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for Palestinian refugees. And for a better understanding of the situation of Palestinian refugees it must be said here that UNRWA does all of the above mentioned, but does not have a resettlement programme. Through UNRWAs work, the misery of Palestinian refugees in the Near East is – in a way - perpetuated indefinitely, as the money invested for education, health, relief and social services is just enough to maintain the status quo, not enough to change their situation.

It is only the UNHCR that will help Palestinian and other refugees to find a new home in a third country, where – usually after a number of years – they will become full citizens, a dream for any refugee. However, will resettled refugees forget about their ultimate dream to return to their place of origin? I don’t think so.

So how does T*’s dreams for the future look like realistically? First, to be resettled and become a healthy, painfree, able-bodied man again. This might yet happen. Even though he still lives in utter squalor and poverty, and in constant pain, with only a minimum of financial and medical support, he might get resettled in a developed country that not only provides him with a home and citizenship, but also sophisticated medical treatment which can completely cure his illness. With the fulfilment of this dream, the life of T* would again be whole. With his newfound health and a passport from his new home country he might even be able to travel to his place of origin, Gaza. What are the chances that by then Gaza will be a free and independent country, part of a nation called Palestine? Very slim indeed.

But I have been proven wrong before. So don’t lose hope, for Hope is Born of Lack of Hope (Sufi proverb).