John Swinney: Scotland's NHS 'stands ready' to support Gaza medical evacuations

The First Minister said he would raise the matter with the UK government “directly” following a meeting with Unicef in Edinburgh.

James Elder, the global spokesperson for Unicef, said evacuations would be a “game-changer” for thousands of wounded and seriously ill children in need of urgent help.

The UN estimates more than 10,000 patients are in need of life-saving medical evacuations, with Mr Elder saying around 2,000 of these are children. He said European countries accepting just 30 child medical evacuees each would make a huge difference.

Mr Elder, who has recently returned from Gaza, said only two children have been medically evacuated to the UK so far.

Asked what issues he planned to raise with the First Minister ahead of a meeting on Tuesday, Mr Elder told journalists: "Medical evacuations will be a big one, to be honest. Medical evacuations are something that all governments can do and that is a game-changer. 

"There is no doubt the only thing that's going to save a million children right now who are at threat of dying of thirst, as well as great food deprivations, is a ceasefire. But you've got thousands of children who need medical evacuation."

He added: "For a child and their mum, it's a game-changer. It's something a government can do. It's not complicated. It's something a government can then show that they're doing. So medical evacuations will certainly be top of that list."

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Mr Elder made the comments after speaking at an event in Edinburgh hosted by communications firm Charlotte Street Partners, where he shared stories of "pure despair" and spoke out against the "normalisation" of a child being killed every hour on average in Gaza. He said the lack of water was now the most urgent problem.

"I've never been to a place where I can talk to ten children in a hospital, each with some remarkably grotesque experience that they've endured, and then I walk into the corridor and there's another mother wanting to tell you a story because either they're hopeful for medical evacuation or they just want somebody to hear it,” Mr Elder told the event.

Unicef has called the conflict in Gaza a war on children. “We don't do that to get a headline,” Mr Elder said. "We do that because numerically we have never seen a conflict impact a percentage of the child population so much."

Mr Swinney said: “We have been consistently clear that the suffering being inflicted on the people of Gaza is beyond any justification. People in Gaza are being bombed and left to starve by Israel on a massive scale.

“In the last year, the Scottish Government has provided £550,000 to charities working in the Middle East who are helping people affected by the ongoing conflict with access to emergency assistance, including food, clean water and medical care.

“Scotland stands ready to play our full part in supporting medical evacuations from Gaza, and the treatment of injured children, and our world-class National Health Service stands ready to offer that support.

“The UK government is responsible for facilitating any transfer of Palestinians, including children, to the UK for medical treatment subject to immigration rules, and I will be raising this matter with them directly.”

A spokesperson for the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “The UK is committed to alleviating Palestinian suffering and helping build stability in the Middle East. Since the start of conflict, UK support has provided essential healthcare to over 430,000 people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and helped several children with complex paediatric conditions access privately funded medical care in the UK.”