Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza turns hospital yards into graveyards

 

Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza is forcing doctors in crammed medical facilities to make difficult decisions about who to treat.

Patients with chronic illnesses are often the first to miss out because emergency departments are overwhelmed by people wounded in Israeli attacks.

“Before the war, I used to receive dialysis three times a week, with each session lasting four hours. At that time, the situation was stable, the treatment was effective, and we would return home feeling well and rested,” Omda Dagmash, a dialysis patient, says at the barely functioning al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

“Now we can barely make the journey to the hospital particularly that we are not eating well.”

At al-Shifa, the dialysis schedule has been scaled down to shorter and less frequent sessions. For some, it is matter of life and death.

“The journey here is long and costly,” said Rowaida Minyawi, an elderly patient. “After all this exhaustion, we sometimes can’t find treatment. I have heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Even the medicine we get is not good. What should we do? Die at home?”

Besides prioritising patients, healthcare workers say they also have to scale back operations to the minimum as no fuel means no power — and no way to save lives.

“Only a few departments are working. We had to cut electricity to the rest,” said Ziad Abu Humaidan, from the hospital’s engineering department.

“The hospital’s yards turned into graveyards rather than a place of care and healing. Without electricity, there is no lighting, no functioning medical equipment, and no support for other essential services.”