The health sector in Gaza is experiencing tragic conditions as a result of the continuous Israeli genocide war on the sector, which targeted hospitals, health centers and medical cadres, and the siege that prevents the treatment of treatment supplies to the sector. A few days ago, the World Health Organization warned of the serious deterioration in the health conditions in the Gaza Strip in light of the suffocating siege imposed on the Strip for nearly two months, and to prevent the entry of humanitarian and medical aid. Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris indicated that the Palestinians are afraid of even going to hospitals because of the targeting of many of them.
To talk about what the health sector in Gaza is experiencing, the Al -Jazeera clinic, Dr. Anas Hijjawi, hosted an orthopedic and joint specialist who recently returned from Gaza after spending two weeks in a medical delegation.
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How did you get to Gaza? How was the journey there?
The beginning of the medical delegation met, we were about 22 people in Amman, we waited for the approval of the Israeli side, the approval of only 9 out of 22 and the rest came to them, and this is 7 hours before the trip. They came to Amman from their countries and stayed until the rejection came.
We set out from Amman to the King Hussein Bridge and from the King Hussein Bridge with a convoy consisting of all the institutions that entered that day to the Kissovim crossing and from the Kissovim crossing we crossed to Gaza after the arrangements and approval came from the Israeli side, and in Gaza we distributed us, it was part of us in the European Hospital and I was from the part in Nasser Hospital, I stayed there for two weeks. The situation in Nasser Hospital was disastrous, starting from the emergency department to the patients ’departments through the operations, and even the administration building and the dialysis building, was a shock to everyone.
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What is the nature of the cases you lived in the sector?
By virtue of my specialization in orthopedics and joints, most of the cases that came to the Orthopedic Surgery Department or even came to emergency are cases of injuries due to the shelling, whether missile shelling or artillery shelling, most patients who came to the emergency department were complex fractures, open fractures, fractures in the pelvis, spinal fractures, Petra for several ends. One patient needed several operations only to save his life at the beginning, then he later needed several other operations to stabilize the fractures and follow the existing wounds, and sometimes burns to the face and chest, so the suffering was severe for one patient, so what about 4 and 5 patients or 10 or 20 patients will come once at the same time.
Open fractures are the opening of the skin with a lack of bone coverage, with a large part of the muscles, tissues, and sometimes nerves and tendons to the bone, the bone was exposed in most patients who came to the hospital, the bone was exposed and broken and sometimes the loss of large parts of the bone, which leaves us no chance except to put preliminary installations using external fixation until the patient’s healthy position improved, Other to the operations and try to stabilize the fracture better, try to find a way to cover wounds with the help of plastic surgeons and restoration.
Complex fractures were mostly in the pelvic area, the complex fracture is a fragmented fracture inside the joints of the joints need to be installed using accurate tools and using special sheets, and this unfortunately is not usually available in the Gaza Strip hospitals, and if it is available, it is not in sufficient quantity and is not in the required sizes and details. There are a large number of victims, in addition to the severe shortage of equipment and severe shortage of consumer materials, including orthopedic substances as the most consumed in this period.
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What are the most prominent substances related to orthopedic surgery that you have noticed?
The missing materials include sterilization in operating rooms, and surgical covers used during operations, we had to use surgical clothing for surgeons to cover wounds, there are tools for special forms and adhesive areas to prevent infections from occurring, in Gaza infections are very large due to the lack of these tools, this exposes the patient to risk, surgeons also endangered risk, endangers the whole process for failure.
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So, a doctor, is there a shortage of everything?
Yes, there is a severe deficiency, and if it is used as a certain thing, it is re -used once, twice and 3 times, although it is designed to use only once. For example, we used external installations (special tools for orthopedic surgery, installation from the outside by screws and special frames about open fractures to facilitate cleaning and easy to return to operations) for open fractures and complex fractures until the patient’s condition improves and prepare again to the operating room and appropriately fixing the fracture. External installations are usually replaced by internal installations or better and final installation, many patients after he comes out of the operating room goes to the patients ’rooms.
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Doctor, was there a large percentage of victims citing the result of complications?
Yes, sometimes the patient comes and hears the news of his martyrdom, sometimes the patient is sent to the house after improving his health and comes to another bombing or another injury, and sometimes the patient goes to the house, and is due to inflammation due to poor conditions of sterilization and because of poor living conditions, in addition to the lack of food and the lack of the available medicine, the fractures requires a great longer time until healing it, and it needs twice or twice the period.
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How did you find people in Gaza?
This is a feeling that I had before I went to Gaza, like any person who lives outside Gaza and did not try the life of wars. Why did you come to us in this ordeal and you do not carry no food, medicine, or medical equipment? This was my biggest concern, at the beginning of entering Gaza and the first meeting with the patients and the medical staff noticing the great welcome, here the feeling of fear ends because the Gazan people themselves have no fear, no woman, a woman, a child, or a great sheikh. Unfortunately, they feel let down by us, the sons of their skin, but they hand over their destiny and their souls to God, life and death are a daily game. And all members of the medical staff whom I have all met have at least one first -class person martyred in this war; The issue of life and death with them is the subject of time, and it is inevitably coming, and they no longer fear it. Everyone in them bid farewell to his mother and father, bid farewell to his children before he comes to work, as this topic has a routine topic, and they overcame the feeling of fear. But their bodies exhausted from the lack of food, the lack of drink, and to work for long hours due to the huge numbers of injuries, and because of the lack of equipment and consumers, you need a large number of medical staff to cover this deficiency.
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What difficulties are currently facing the health sector?
I was working in the operations departments, I used to help patients in the emergency of the simplest sterilization and sewing needles, and to tools, and narcotic drugs are incomplete or not present, as a result of the Israeli siege and not even allowing medical delegations to carry the tools that they will use at least during their stay in Gaza. I personally left several tools in Jordan that I could not enter.
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What about the health staff working there in this sector?
The health staff in Gaza has tired and tired of the long working hours, and for the many injuries and for the lack of consumers and supplies, so you have to invent several ways in which many things are used in their place, what is used for the thigh or the leg is used for the hand and what is used for hand is used for the thigh or the leg due to the lack of the existing tools, this casts them with great burdens and this is the scenario on a daily basis since the beginning of the aggression. Medical delegations that come trying to alleviate, but fatigue is on their faces, many of them have lost their loved ones and are still at the head of their work.
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Doctor I want us to talk about a human situation that affected you
Every night we hear the bombing sounds continuously, ambulances come out to the places of bombing, the martyrs and the wounded are attended, we receive them in the emergency room. On one night, an ambulance came with 3 children of the bodies of one of these children who were pronouncing himself, and put them next to each other and took them towards the morgue, and then about 10 minutes later came several people looking for their families, one of these people glimpsed him looking for his three children; Neither I nor anyone from the emergency department possessed the courage to tell this father that his three children are in the morgue.
Whenever I “go with my imagination”, I watch myself sit in the emergency of Nasser Hospital, and this father enters a search for his children.
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Doctor, what does the health sector need to return as it was before the aggression?
The health sector needs everything, the health sector needs everything, needs to be rebuilt for hospitals, needs to provide devices, need to pump the human element, need logistical support, psychological support, and material support for medical cadres, in need of concerted efforts, whether individual or international. Doctors in Gaza on a very high amount of efficiency, science, perseverance and lack of surrender, but they increased the matter, and they are tired in their path and in need of external support, and this is our duty, whether in the medical sector or in various sectors supporting the medical sector, to support them with their steadfastness, they are the focus of the people’s steadfastness in Gaza, the medical sector is the last pillar in the pillars of the resilience of the people in Gaza. This is the last defense line.