gaza’s exhausted doctors leave children to die
Thousands of people in the Gaza Strip have sustained injuries due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Women and children are severely impacted by the war between Israel forces and Hamas fighters.
In the European hospital in Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, overwhelming medical staff are struggling because of the huge influx of patients arriving from the north of Gaza. They have to decide who among the patients arriving from the north of Gaza should live or die.
The overwhelmed doctors in the European hospital in Khan Younis are forced to leave children to die. They have said, “We are overwhelmed.” The hospital also lacks medicine, food rations and intermittent power.
Children are suffering in Gaza hospital
Injured people, including children, were seeking shelter and safety in medical facilities. Paul Ley, an orthopedic surgeon at the European hospital, told The Guardian that displaced people were sleeping in lifts.
The doctors were working round the clock in four operating theaters to amputate limbs infected without treatment. However, there was an acute shortage of painkillers. The doctors had to make the tough decision to leave a 12-year-old child to die with only palliative care in order to preserve hospital resources and painkillers.
Many children who arrived at the hospital were injured days before, meaning wounds had become infected. The patient’s dressings were not changed for 10 days. Children’s wounds were full of worms. The doctors were forced to amputate limbs that may otherwise have been saved.
The problem is a lack of anesthetics and painkillers at the hospital. The doctors said, “We do operations with minimal anesthesia. If we run out, we can’t operate but there is no clear line.”
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Paul Ley, an orthopedic surgeon at the European hospital, said, “This is the situation that is happening here now. This is a functioning hospital but we are being overwhelmed.”
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