2023-12-17 03:20:23
During the Gaza war, the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out the continued catastrophic medical supply situation in the sealed-off coastal strip. The heavily damaged Shifa Hospital is only “minimalally functional” and urgently needs to be able to resume at least the most basic functions “to continue to care for the thousands of people in need of life-saving medical care,” the WHO said in a statement on Sunday.
The day before, employees had brought medicine, surgical aid and anesthetics there with UN aid organizations. In the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, only a handful of doctors, a few nurses and 70 volunteers are still working under “incredibly difficult” conditions, it said.
The operating theaters are not functioning because there is a lack of fuel, oxygen, specialist staff and supplies. There is also no blood for transfusions and hardly any staff to care for the constant flow of patients. The dialysis station for kidney patients supplies around 30 patients a day with a small generator. Tens of thousands used the hospital building and grounds as accommodation.
The team described the emergency room as a “bloodbath,” with hundreds of injured people and new patients arriving every minute. The emergency room is so full that you have to be careful not to step on patients on the floor, the employees said. Patients in critical condition would be transferred to Al-Ahli Hospital in the same city for operations, it said. This is the only one in the northern Gaza Strip that is still at least partially functional.
Nevertheless, according to a recent WHO report, the conditions there are also catastrophic. The clinic can only occupy 40 of the 80 beds, but has more than 200 patients, a WHO representative said a few days ago. Doctors treated some seriously injured people on the ground and sidewalk.
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