A US doctor describes an indescribable scene from the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. In just a few days it would no longer be possible to work there at all.
Almost 100 days after the start of the Gaza war, conditions in the few remaining functioning hospitals in the coastal strip are reportedly catastrophic. “There is no more morphine,” said American doctor Seema Jilani in an audio message distributed by the aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday. Jilani had previously returned from a two-week assignment with the IRC at Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip.
Painkillers are missing in Gaza hospital
“So we give patients on the verge of death, in the agony of death, midazolam, a drug for anxiety, but which does not relieve pain,” said the doctor. Medicine often cannot do more for patients than relieve them of pain. But in Gaza even that is no longer true; dying people cannot be given relief. “There is no death with dignity when you are lying on the floor of an emergency room in Gaza, and when the hospital is out of morphine and mobile oxygen machines.”
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According to Jilani, it is thanks to “absolutely heroic nurses, doctors and volunteers” that the Al-Aqsa Hospital is still functioning at all. But even so, it will only be able to work for a few more days, she added.
As a result of Israeli military operations, 23,469 people have been killed and a further 59,604 injured since the start of the war, according to the latest figures from the Hamas-controlled health authority. The numbers cannot currently be independently verified. Israel invokes its right to self-defense after the bloody attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas and other extremists on October 7, 2023. Around 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were kidnapped from Israel, around half of whom have been released so far.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
