By Jane Kevern; an almost retired locum GP
There is still no end to the blockade; additional atrocities are occurring – people collecting food aid being targeted, injured and killed; reports of healthcare workers abducted, humiliated and tortured; an imminent ground offensive by the Israeli army into the “safe zone” of Rafah, the Israeli military still receiving support from the UK and the US. Shameful.
Healthcare Workers for Palestine was founded in the UK in November by Staffordshire GP Mohamed Emara and Oxford-based Paediatric Neurologist, Omar Abdel-Mannan.
Since November 10, city groups have been holding weekly or fortnightly vigils to raise awareness of the healthcare and humanitarian crisis and to remember healthcare staff caught up in this catastrophe – those who continue to work, in the most dangerous, exhausting and psychologically challenging conditions; those who made the heart-breaking decision to leave their place of work to seek a place of safety with their families; those who have been abducted by the Israeli army, their whereabouts and their welfare unknown; and those who have been killed.
More healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7 than have been killed in all other global conflicts combined over the last 12 months.
It is reported that more children have been killed in Gaza since October 7 than have been killed in all other global conflicts combined over the last four years. It is reported that more than 72,000 people have been injured. More than 2 million civilians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes, satellite data analysis obtained by the BBC reveals that between 50 and 61% of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
It is now widely acknowledged by aid agencies and the World Health Organisation, that the healthcare system for the 2.3 million people in Gaza has collapsed; it is essentially non-functioning. Primary Healthcare facilities and hospitals have been badly damaged or destroyed; at least 120 ambulances have been destroyed; medical supplies and fuel supplies severely depleted by the blockade of the necessities of life; mains electricity to the Gaza strip was cut off by the Israeli government in October as was the mains water supply. Staffing in the barely functioning hospitals is reduced by 70%. Those remaining staff members are exhausted and traumatised because of what they are seeing and because they can do so little to help.
Gaza is a small strip of land, only 25 miles in length, 7.5 miles wide, at its widest point. Before October 7, there were 72 healthcare facilities serving the population, including 36 hospitals. The specialist cancer hospital, the 2 paediatric hospitals, and the psychiatry hospital are all closed – non-functional. No out-patients, no in-patients. Patients have had to leave and are not receiving care.
Only 5 of the 32 other hospitals are open, only one of them fully functioning, the others able to offer a very limited service – there are no functioning hospitals in the north of the Gaza strip. As well as being incredibly under-staffed, the remaining hospitals are without adequate supplies. Staff in some of those hospitals say they are providing little more than first aid to people with severe traumatic injuries – severe burns, crush injuries, traumatic limb loss, wounds penetrated by shrapnel & debris. In the few hospitals able to perform surgery, some operations are being performed without anaesthesia, because it is not available – including amputations and caesareans. Basic necessities are not available or are in critically short supply, including strong pain relief for people dying from horrific injuries.
There is no primary care, and, as far as I’m aware, there are no functioning community pharmacies. So, people must be dying from diabetes as they have no access to insulin; dying from asthma as they have no access to inhalers; dying from heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia, meningitis, strokes, appendicitis, cancer – all of the usual conditions that were looked after by healthcare facilities day to day before October 7th.
Children are already dying from malnutrition and dehydration because of a blockade imposed by the Israeli government. Why aren’t international governments demanding that they open all the border crossings? Why doesn’t the world apply sanctions if they don’t?
The rates of communicable disease have soared due to overcrowding in areas to which people have fled, due to the collapse of sanitation infrastructure, the shortage of water, little remaining healthcare, and the poor nutritional state of children and adults.
I cannot fathom how this is being allowed to happen, and seemingly to be barely condemned. The Israel government acting with impunity. That one country has the power to cut off the necessities of life to 2.3 million people and to choose to use that power, to me is barbaric.
So, Healthcare Workers advocating for Palestinians in Gaza will continue to hold vigils, until there is recognition that the people of Gaza have human rights, including the right to healthcare.