Doctors Without Borders: Dramatic conditions at a hospital in Khan Younis

– Children lie on the floor. There are no more mattresses and beds, so the patients lie in the corridors on carpets and sit on stairs, says nurse Cristina Roldán in Médecins Sans Frontières.

– The employees have hammered nails into the wall to be able to hang up bags of intravenous fluids and medicines that the patients need. It is a very demanding situation, and the team is exhausted, she says.

The Nasser hospital in Khan Younis receives a daily influx of wounded from Israeli attacks and is now overcrowded.

About to run out

– At the same time, we are about to run out of medical equipment and medicines, which puts patients at risk of losing vital health care, says Roldán.

The children’s ward at the hospital has 56 beds, but at most it has received almost twice as many daily, she says.

This week Israel ordered the evacuation of the areas east and south of Khan Younis, which led to the evacuation and closure of the European hospital in the east of the city. Nasser Hospital is now the only Palestinian hospital operating in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Evacuated patients

Many of the patients from the European hospital were transferred to the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah, while others found their way to the Nasser hospital, about 10 kilometers further west in Khan Younis.

Many were forced to get there themselves, some on foot.

– We have heard that patients traveled on their own, and that they arrived at the Nasser hospital in beds or were supported by family members, says medical team leader Javid Abdelmoneim in Doctors Without Borders.

Since April, Israel has refused the aid organization to transport medical supplies into the Gaza Strip. On 3 July at the latest, several trucks with medical equipment from Doctors Without Borders were stopped at the border, he says.