RAMALLAH: ActionAid International, a global federation, in a statement, said doctors at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza are once again delivering babies and saving lives against the odds amid incredibly challenging conditions after the Israeli siege of the facility ended.
For more than 20 days in December, no one was able to enter or leave the hospital, which is run by ActionAid’s partner Al-Awda, after it was surrounded by snipers. All services were stopped as 170 people were trapped inside – staff, patients, and their relatives fought to survive on increasingly dwindling food and water supplies, said ActionAid.
Adnan Radi, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Al-Awda Hospital, said in a voice note update that six healthcare workers died in the final days of the siege, while pregnant women were killed while attempting to access the hospital.
During the siege, staff members were detained by the Israeli military before being released, but the manager of the hospital, Ahmed Muhanna, who was arrested and taken away, is still in custody and his whereabouts are unknown.
‘We are extremely concerned for his safety and call for him to be released immediately. Medical professionals have a protected status under international humanitarian law, which must be respected,’ said the statement.
Following the end of the siege, doctors at Al-Awda have once again resumed treating patients despite experiencing a severe shortage of medical supplies, fuel, food and water, which makes their work almost impossible. As one of only four hospitals partially functioning in the north of Gaza – and the sole facility able to provide maternity services in the north – it is a lifeline for thousands of desperate people and particularly pregnant women in the region.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had called off a planned mission to bring medical supplies to Al-Awda and other hospitals in the north for the fourth time after failing to receive safety guarantees. It has now been almost two weeks since the agency was last able to reach northern Gaza.
In his voicenote, Radi spoke about the huge challenges facing staff working at the hospital. He said: ‘We are facing many obstacles… The first is the safety of the hospital and the team in the hospital.’
‘There are severe shortages of specialists and consultants, as most of the consultants and specialists of obstetrics and gynecology evacuated to Rafah and Khan Younis. Anti-D, Clexane, antibiotics and most emergency drugs in obstetrics are not available in the hospital,’ he said.
‘Most of our surgery [is] done under headlights. There is no electricity at all,’ he stressed.
He maintained that Al-Awda Hospital is the only hospital which is still [providing] maternity services in the north.
‘Many patients reach [us] with severe postpartum hemorrhage as they delivered on the way to the hospital or in the evacuated areas, in schools and other areas in Jabalia or Gaza,’ he said.
‘Many of them…need[ed] blood transfusion[s], which [are] not available at the hospital in this condition,’ he added.
Al-Awda Hospital is one of only four hospitals partially functioning in the north of Gaza and the sole facility able to provide maternity services in the north. It is a lifeline for thousands of desperate people, particularly pregnant women.
Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA