Kuwaiti Hospital chief raises alarm over acute shortage of most medicines in Gaza
Suhaib al-Hams, the director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Gaza’s southern town of Rafah, has issued a statement raising alarm over acute shortages of most medicines and essential foods needed for patients after two months of Israeli blockade.
“We confirm that the sector suffers from acute shortages in more than 75% of essential medicines, a large part of which constitute life-saving medications, which is directly threatening the lives of the vast majority of patients,” he said.
“The ability to continue providing medical services is at stake, as the available stock of medicines and medical supplies is currently insufficient for more than one week,” al-Hams added.
He warned that most of the medical services will stop if this situation continues without immediate intervention and called on “all concerned parties to move immediately” to reopen the borders for entry of medical and humanitarian aid.
Al-Hams said the crossings must also urgently open “to evacuate patients who are slowly dying every day without treatment”.
‘Real disaster’: Gaza patients face death as fuel runs dry
The director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, Dr Marwan Sultan, says hospital wards have become overcrowded with wounded patients and intensive care beds are full. “Generators must be operated 24 hours a day to ensure the continued operation of ventilators connected to the wounded,” Sultan said, according to the Palestinian Information Center.
“We call on all international and humanitarian organisations to work seriously and quickly to provide the hospital with the fuel needed to operate it, otherwise we are facing a real disaster that threatens the death of a large number of wounded and sick people in intensive care units.”
The volunteer doctors helping in Gaza’s beleaguered Nasser Hospital
In the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza’s Khan Younis, a volunteer doctor breaks down as he speaks of the things he’s seen during his mission there. It is impossible to get over the scenes of starving, shocked, and injured children, thoracic surgeon Ehab Massad says.
“The sight of a child standing at the door, bewildered because they have lost their entire family in a bombing, I could never forget that, ever,” he adds in a faltering voice as tears fill his eyes.
Massad is a member of a medical mission by the Rahma Worldwide organisation, one of four doctors working in Qatar to have joined.
“I feel like no matter what we do for [the people of Gaza], it will never feel like enough.”
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‘Beyond catastrophic’: Surgeon describes spiraling Gaza disaster
Dr Mohammad Tahir spent several months in Gaza as a volunteer performing more than 1,200 surgeries and described the healthcare system as already “on its knees” when he left in January. But now it is far worse.
“My colleagues in the hospitals tell me the situation is beyond catastrophic. They write me letters of farewell in case they are killed,” Tahir told Al Jazeera.
Israel’s attacks have intensified since it broke the ceasefire with Hamas and imposed the total blockade on Gaza two months ago.
“You are seeing again and again child after child being dismembered, disembowelled, beheaded, burned. Who do we turn to in this modern era to make this come to an end? We have lost our conscience, what humanity represents,” said Tahir.
