S'pore medical team moved by grit of sick Palestinian children in Cairo hospital

As the world watched transfixed at the conflict in her home town in Gaza, a six-year-old Palestinian girl lay in a hospital hundreds of kilometres away, fighting her own battle against kidney disease.

- Samuel Devaraj Correspondent

Despite undergoing dialysis three times a week, she was in good spirits her positive attitude belying the scars of what she has endured.

The young girl was among about 150 sick and injured Palestinians who were evacuated from Gaza more than a year ago to Nasser Institute Hospital in Cairo, Egypt.

Some of the patients who remain in the hospital, including two children with kidney disease, were visited between Sept 20 and 22 by a Singapore team of healthcare professionals specialising in treating children.

The medical team included the first foreign doctors that Egypt has allowed to be deployed to its hospitals.

One of them, the National University Hospital's (NUH) Professor Yap Hui Kim, was struck by the resilience of the young patients.

Prof Yap, 71, is head and emeritus consultant of the paediatric nephrology, dialysis and renal transplantation division at the Khoo Teck Puat - National University Children's Medical Institute at NUH.

Speaking to The Sunday Times on Oct 2, Prof Yap said: "These kids are truly very resilient, and they make the most of where they are. Whatever trauma they may have gone through is not something that we can see outwardly.