2024-01-18 08:32:01
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Every day, Palestinians die in the overflowing hospitals that remain operational in Gaza and cannot cope with the tens of thousands of people injured in the Israeli offensive in the enclave, a health emergency expert from the Gaza Strip said Wednesday. United Nations. A doctor from the International Rescue Committee described the situation in the Gaza Strip’s health centers as the most extreme she has ever seen.
The two health professionals, who spent weeks working in hospitals in the territory, said that overwhelmed doctors are trying to save the lives of thousands of injured people in collapsed hospitals that have become makeshift refugee camps.
Sean Casey of the World Health Organization recently left Gaza after five weeks trying to get staff and supplies to the 16 partially functioning hospitals. During a UN press conference he noted that he witnessed “a really scary situation in the hospitals” as the healthcare system collapses day by day.
Al-Shifa, once the enclave’s main hospital with 700 beds, treats only urgent trauma victims and is packed with thousands of people who have fled their homes and now live in its operating rooms, hallways and stairwells. , he claimed.
“Literally five or six doctors or nurses” see hundreds of patients a day, Casey said, most with potentially life-threatening injuries, and there are “so many patients on the floor that you can barely move without stepping on someone’s hand or foot.” ”.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry estimates that 60,000 people have been injured in the Israeli military campaign, a number that increases by hundreds every day.
Since Israel declared war on Hamas following its surprise attack in the south of its territory on October 7, it has repeatedly accused the insurgent group of using the besieged enclave’s hospitals as a cover for its military activity. Authorities singled out Al-Shifa, in Gaza City, noting that the militia had command centers and bunkers hidden beneath the complex. In late November, the military discovered what it identified as underground Hamas military facilities beneath the hospital.
Casey noted that he was able to reach Al-Shifa on three occasions with medical supplies, fuel and food, but one of them took 12 days due to Israeli denials, which mainly cited security or operational reasons.
At Al-Ahli hospital, also in Gaza City, the situation was also desperate, he said.
“I saw patients lying in church pews, basically waiting to die in a hospital with no fuel, electricity or water, with very few medical supplies and just a handful of workers to care for them,” he said.
Last week he visited the Nasser medical complex, the largest hospital in Khan Yunis, which is at 200% of its capacity and has only 30% of its staff available, so “there are patients everywhere, in the corridors, in soil”.
“I went to the burn unit where there was a doctor caring for 100 burn patients,” he added.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border and where Israel has urged Gazans to move, the population has skyrocketed from 270,000 residents a few weeks ago to nearly a million now, and the city has no medical facilities. to address the avalanche of displaced people, Casey said.
Historically, Gaza had a robust health system with 36 hospitals, 25,000 health workers and many specialists, he said, but 85% of its 2.3 million inhabitants are now displaced, and that includes workers in the sector, from nurses to surgeons. to administrative staff.
Casey said many of these professionals are in shelters or under plastic sheets on the streets of Rafah, and not in hospitals. The director of one of them told him that his plastic surgeon could not operate because he was looking for firewood to make a fire to cook for his family.
The priority for aid to the tens of thousands of wounded Gazans and people with health problems is a ceasefire and the security that such a measure would provide, Casey explained, but he acknowledged that it is not enough.
“It’s actually a complete package,” he added, stating that medical supplies have to overcome obstacles and inspections before entering the enclave, and then they must still reach the hospitals where they are needed.
But without personnel, materials and fuel for generators in hospitals and medical centers, “surgical interventions cannot be performed or postoperative care provided,” he said.
According to Casey, the WHO is trying to mobilize international emergency medical teams to help Gazan hospitals. In addition, it has supported the establishment of several field hospitals over the past six weeks, she added.
“The number of medical evacuations out of the Gaza Strip is very limited,” he said. “We know that there are thousands of people who would benefit from higher level care that can no longer be provided” there, including cancer patients. or with complex injuries.
“People die every day,” Casey said. “I’ve seen children full of shrapnel die on the floor because there is no material in the emergency room or toilets to care for them.”
In another press conference, Dr. Seema Jilani, a pediatrician and technical advisor to the International Rescue Committee for health emergencies, said she spent two weeks in Gaza in collaboration with Medical Aid for Palestinians and that what she witnessed was “heartbreaking, scenes straight out of nightmares”.
“From my experience in conflict zones around the world, this is the most extreme situation I have seen in terms of scale, severity of injuries, number of children who have suffered who have nothing to do with any of this,” said Jilani, who has been to places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon.
Jilani worked in the emergency department of the Al-Aksa hospital in Deir al-Balah, the only one in the central area of the territory. On his first day, he said, he tried to save a child of around one year old whose right arm and leg had been blown off, without the necessary medication, while next to him there was a dying man with “flies (…) that they were already having a feast.”
The doctor explained that she treated children with injuries ranging from amputations to extreme burns, and that she sometimes saw the smoke from Israeli bombings.
“And one day, a bullet went through the intensive care unit,” he said.
After his departure, the hospital ran out of fuel and its lights went out, and he noted that he does not know how the babies he treated are doing, nor if they were evacuated.
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