By Catherine Ageno
Medical personnel operating in Gaza are worried about the total collapse of the health care system as fighting rages on between Hamas and Israeli forces.
The fighting that erupted on October 7th has so far claimed hundreds of lives and left hospitals grappling with a health crisis due to the growing number of the severely injured.
Abdul Qadir Hamad, the head of the Kidney Transplant Department at Liverpool Royal Hospital in the UK and is leading a team that arrived in Gaza this week to perform sponsored medical procedures describes the situation at the facility as dire.
Speaking from Gaza, Dr Hamad says medical supplies are running out fast, putting the lives of critically ill patients at risk
“There are thousands of people who are sheltering in the grounds of this hospital and unfortunately, we can’t evacuate critically ill patients from the hospital. They will die if we evacuate them, so there’s no way of taking those patients off their ventilators and send them somewhere else,” Dr Hamad said.
Dr Hamad also calls for urgent replenishing of medical supplies in hospitals in Gaza
Meanwhile, according to the BBC, UN aid agencies have begun to significantly reduce their operations in the Gaza Strip because they have almost exhausted their fuel reserves.
The UN agencies say small quantities of fuel retrieved from existing reserves are being used to maintain the water supply in the south, where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering from Israeli strikes.
