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‘The Whole Health System Is Collapsing Around Us.’ Doctors Say Gaza Is on the Brink [1]

['Condé Nast', 'Grace Browne', 'Angela Watercutter', 'Joel Khalili', 'Andy Greenberg', 'Anne Pouzargues', 'Arbab Ali', 'Maryn Mckenna', 'Emily Mullin', 'Phoebe Weston']

Date: 2023-10-19 17:17:33.507000+00:00

Even before this week’s deadly hospital blast, Gaza’s health system was already on the brink of collapse. At least 3,700 Palestinians in Gaza have been declared dead since the beginning of the Israeli-Hamas war, and an estimated 12,000 have been injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Gaza’s health system has faced a huge influx of emergency patients, while at the same time suffering the effects of bombardment and having utilities cut.

On October 13, the Israeli military told everyone in the north of Gaza to evacuate. This created an impossible situation for hospitals filled with patients who were too unwell to be moved. The World Health Organization said the evacuation order was a “death sentence” for the sick and injured.

“The whole health system is collapsing around us,” says Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a plastic surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) who is working in Gaza at Al-Shifa Hospital, the biggest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, located in Gaza City. He paints a picture of a system stripped down to the bare bones.

The orthopedic department has run out of the pins and rods needed to stabilize fractures, Abu-Sittah says. The water pressure has become too weak to run the sterilization machines that disinfect equipment, meaning the hospital staff are forced to rely on a chemical antiseptic that hasn’t been commonly used for decades. There are no ventilators available. There is not even enough room for the injured in the hospital. “There is no more space or mattresses to put the wounded on in the corridors,” says Abu-Sittah. Health care staff are exhausted and are struggling to deal with the overwhelming number of injured.

On October 18, Abu-Sittah helped treat a patient with a wound that had become infected and septic. But with all operating rooms full, doctors could not treat it in time, and the patient will lose a leg as a result.

Since Israel blocked access to electricity in Gaza more than a week ago, hospitals have been relying on backup generators. Now they’re running dangerously low on fuel. The United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported on Wednesday that Gaza’s Ministry of Health is redistributing fuel from other public facilities to keep hospital generators running. “They’re running out of everything,” says Zaher Sahloul, the president of MedGlobal, an NGO that is supporting medical facilities in Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that without electricity, “hospitals risk turning into morgues.”

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[1] Url: https://www.wired.com/story/gaza-health-system-collapse-israel-hamas/

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