Dr. Jill Biden, the Second Lady of the United States of America and Vice President Joe Biden’s spouse, visited the Lutheran World Federation’s Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem on March 10. Dr. Biden was accompanied by the spouse of the American Consul General in Jerusalem, the Deputy Mission Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development and members of the delegation accompanying the U.S. Vice President during his visit to the region. Dr. Tawfiq Nasser, CEO of AVH, and Reverend Mark Brown, the Regional Representative of the Lutheran World Federation in Jerusalem and the Middle East, received the guests and introduced them to the administrative and medical teams managing the hospital.
Dr. Nasser expressed his deep gratitude to the American people and government for their support to the hospital’s ongoing and future projects. He explained the major role that AVH and other Jerusalem hospitals play in providing support to the Palestinian health system and in building Palestinian civil society institutions.
Dr. Biden and the visiting delegation talked to the women who were waiting to receive radiotherapy treatment. This visit comes in the light of the assistance provided to the hospital in the field of cancer screening and treatment. Augusta Victoria Hospital is the only Arab Palestinian hospital providing comprehensive services to cancer patients, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgical interventions.
While in the Radiotherapy Unit, Dr. Nasser detailed the hospital’s future plans to expand cancer treatment services. This was followed by a visit to the site where a second linear accelerator for radiotherapy would be installed in the future.
Dr. Biden also visited the Kidney Dialysis Unit for adults and the Pediatric cancer care and kidney care unit, where she met with some children suffering from cancer who receive treatment at the hospital. One of the children presented a present to Dr. Biden.
At the end of the visit, Dr. Biden expressed her deep thanks to Dr. Nasser and Reverend Brown for the warm reception she received at the hospital and acknowledged the huge efforts exerted by the hospital staff and management.
