Geneva:
World Health Organization officials expressed concern on Tuesday over the possible collapse of hospital facilities in southern and central Gaza, with hundreds of medical staff and patients fleeing facilities for their lives.
Only about a third of Gaza's hospitals are functioning at all, and some only partially, in the bombed enclave after months of Israeli bombardments as part of the military campaign against Hamas in response to the October 7 attacks.
Fighting has intensified in the central and southern areas, putting additional pressure on the overburdened hospitals that remain open.
“What we are seeing is really worrying around Al Aqsa Hospital and (an) intensification of hostilities very close to the European Gaza Hospital and very close to Nasser Hospital,” said Sean Casey, coordinator of the emergency medical teams WHO in Gaza, against a meeting in Geneva. press conference via video link.
“We cannot lose these health facilities. They absolutely need to be protected. This is the last line of secondary and tertiary healthcare that Gaza has – from the north to the south it has fallen, hospital after hospital,” he said.
He said patients risked their lives on Tuesday to go to hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis because of the ongoing fighting.
During a visit to Al Aqsa in central Gaza two days ago, he found that 70% of the staff had abandoned their posts. That same night, hundreds of patients well enough to flee followed his example, he said.
Many staff from Nasser Hospital in the town of Khan Younis had also joined hundreds of thousands of other Gazans in shelters in the southern tip of the strip, he added. There was only one doctor there for the more than 100 burn victims, he said.
“What we continue to see is the healthcare system suffering: healthcare workers who cannot go to their workplaces to care for patients because they fear for their lives… Patients who are afraid and their families who are afraid to go to the hospital because they can die. the road,” he said.
“We are seeing the health care system collapsing at a very rapid pace,” he added.
Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, told the same briefing that it is becoming increasingly difficult for WHO to make medical deliveries in Gaza.
“What we see is a complex and shrinking humanitarian space, due to the hostilities moving south and the lack of access,” he said.
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