Kidney patients in hospitals in southern Gaza Strip are fighting death
Occupied Al-Quds, (ST) – The kidney patient Huda Odeh is fighting pain and death. She was displaced from her home in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza Strip to the city of Rafah in the south.
Huda needs dialysis twice a week, which is impossible in the light of the severe overcrowding in hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip, due to the Israeli occupation aggression that destroyed most hospitals and deprived the sick and wounded of treatment
Hoda told a SANA reporter as she tried to hold her wheelchair with signs of fatigue covering her face: Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, which has a small dialysis department, performs dialysis for only two hours a week instead of eight hours, due to extreme crowding and being the only hospital that includes a dialysis department Kidney south of the sector.
Hoda confirms that her health condition is getting worse every day with the reduction in dialysis hours. She pointed out that many of the kidney patients she knew have died, due to their inability to reach hospitals and health centers besieged by the occupation to perform dialysis operations in a timely manner.
Mahmoud Al-Nahhal from the northern Gaza Strip recounts his tragedy of parting with his mother, who was a kidney patient and died as a result of irregular dialysis operations that stopped completely after the occupation forces besieged the Indonesian Hospital, which deprived hundreds of patients of treatment sessions to save their lives.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that the occupation destroyed the dialysis departments in the Indonesian and Shifa hospitals in Gaza City, exposing the lives of more than 1,000 kidney patients to the risk of death. It said that its medical personnel and capabilities were exhausted in light of the large number of martyrs and wounded that exceeded 100,000 since the start of the occupation’s aggression on the 7th since last October.
The Ministry warned that hospitals in the Gaza Strip were unable to provide treatment to the wounded and sick, in light of the occupation’s deliberate targeting of the health system, which led to the martyrdom of 339 medical personnel, the injury of 450, and the destruction of more than 90 percent of hospitals and health centers.
Palestinian human rights organizations constantly point out the death of hundreds of patients in Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli aggression, due to their inability to reach hospitals due to the occupation’s siege on them and the exhaustion of medicines and medical supplies.
Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman Raed Nims confirmed that there are more than 350,000 people with chronic diseases at risk of death, as a result of their treatment stopping almost completely, with the running out of medicines and medical supplies and severe overcrowding in hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip, especially in the city of Rafah.
Nims referred that the hospitals in the city of Khan Younis is subjected to siege and direct targeting by occupation aircraft and artillery that besiege Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals in the city. He called for urgent intervention to save the lives of the wounded and sick in light of the health disaster in Gaza Strip.
Raghda Sawas