Private hospitals stop treating Palestinian military personnel

Palestinian private hospitals on Monday stopped admitting Palestinian Authority military personnel because of the government\'s outstanding bills. The federation of private hospitals decided to start refusing treatment to patients referred by the PA\'s military medical services because their debt to hospitals reached 30 million shekels ($8.34 million), federation chief Dr Nitham Nijab said. Several hospitals announced that they could no longer afford to amass more debt, Najib told Ma\'an, adding that some hospitals had not paid their employees for several months. Other hospitals have had to borrow from banks to meet their basic expenses, and suppliers have threatened to stop providing medicine and equipment, Nijab added. The PA\'s military medical services promised to transfer 10 million shekels ($2.87 million) and 150,000 Jordanian dinars ($212,000) to the federation of private hospitals several months ago but the money was not delivered, Nijab said. On Tuesday, a network of fuel distributors announced that gas stations would stop letting the PA security forces fill up for free after the PA\'s finance ministry failed to pay their bills for five months.