Healthcare as a fundamental human right

Despite the universal right to health, thousands of people across the world live without basic healthcare. Too often in situations of war, violence and poverty the people with greatest needs are deprived of adequate medical treatment and drugs.

Our doctors try to bridge this gap in mobile clinics, hospitals and day-care centres. The Holy Family Maternity Hospital in Bethlehem is the only place for women of the region to give birth under good medical conditions. Its mobile clinic reaches isolated villages in the West Bank, caring for women whose medical needs would otherwise go unmet. The hospital is the only one in the area to have a neonatal intensive care unit and has become a benchmark for the entire region. Over 4,500 babies are born here every year.

In Africa there are some 20 hospitals with various specializations such as orthopaedics, gynaecology, general medicine, and others. In Great Britain. there are over 70 facilities for patients suffering from dementia. The Order also manages hospitals and ambulance services in Germany.

Across Lebanon the Order of Malta runs 28 medical facilities that serve both the local population and refugees. In California people unable to afford health insurance receive free healthcare in our clinics. Further south, in Bolivia dialysis treatment is available in the country’s second largest city, El Alto, for those who cannot afford it.