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Gazan Doctor to Sputnik: ‘We Work Under Shelling Without Any Sleep’

Despite poorly equipped corridors and the absence of general anesthesia, Gaza's doctors perform operations on the injured who pour in after every Israeli bombing campaign against the enclave.
Sputnik
All of Gaza's functioning hospitals are overcrowded due to a combination of hospitals being destroyed and other medical facilities being evacuated. The burden on the remaining hospitals is enormous. There are constantly many wounded people pouring in after shelling. Around the hospitals, there are lines of victims and displaced people who are setting up spontaneous tent camps. Doctors lack sufficient medicines, supplies, or space to accommodate the wounded.
An injured child in Al Shifaa hospital, Gaza
Doctor Basel Abu Warda works at Al Shifaa Hospital. He emphasized that since the recent escalation broke out, the medical staff have been unable to carry out their work effectively because the hospital is overcrowded.

“It’s very difficult to work when there are so many patients. The doctors are severely pressed for time, and our hospital alone is grappling with an overwhelming influx of people that we simply cannot accommodate. Moreover, seven hospitals are currently non-operational, resulting in the redirection of the majority of patients to our facility. When the crisis initially unfolded, we were tending to 1,700 wounded individuals. However, this number has skyrocketed to 60,000, with both the hospital grounds and its surroundings now packed with people who have sought refuge from the relentless Israeli shelling," he noted.

Therefore, the medical staff at Al Shifaa have to work tirelessly under horrendous conditions – in crowded corridors, devoid of necessary equipment and medicines, including anesthesia.

“Now the wounded may die right in the corridors, without ever receiving medical help. Doctors are overworked, toiling away tirelessly, residing in the hospital, and only getting a few hours of sleep at a time. When the Al Ahli Arab hospital came under attack, the victims underwent surgeries without proper anesthesia due to a lack of time and medicine. Consequently, patients who can’t hold out any longer for a complicated medical procedure are now losing their lives. However, the current conditions make it impossible to conduct these operations effectively,” Dr. Abu Warda pointed out.

In a separate development, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has shared a video of a doctor from Al Shifaa Hospital in Gaza City who said that the medics there managed to save the life of a newborn child.

“His mother suffered severe injuries during an Israeli airstrike on a house in the northern Gaza Strip. While the woman tragically succumbed to her wounds, the doctors managed to rescue and safely remove the child. As a result of this devastating incident, the baby is now an orphan, as all 11 members of his family lost their lives, Currently, the infant is being closely monitored by the medical staff," the doctor said.

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