Mai al-Kaila

Mai al-Kaila is a Palestinian physician, diplomat and politician who became the first woman to serve as the Palestinian Minister of Health. She was born in East Jerusalem on 8 April 1955, studied nursing at the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem, took a medical degree at the University of Granada, trained in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, and later earned a doctorate in public health and epidemiology at the University of Chile. She worked as a resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology at the Palestine Red Crescent Hospital, lectured in public health at Al-Quds University and headed the maternal and child programme of the United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees. She served as ambassador to Chile and then Italy, and from April 2019 to March 2024 was health minister, in which role she chaired the Palestinian Medical Council. In 2017 she received a gold medal from the Norman Academy.