NO ANTIBIOTICS IN GAZA

No antibiotics to halt slow death as hospitals overwhelmed

Sudarsan Raghavan and Islam Abdel Kareem in Jerusalem, smh

January 1, 2009

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RAWIYA AYAD lay in a bed on the ground floor of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, connected to a respirator. A bandage covered her head and dried blood was still on her face. Shrapnel from an Israeli air strike was embedded in her brain, poisoning her blood. She was in a coma.

The hospital had no antibiotics to prevent her slow death. There was a shortage of electricity, too. So if the generator malfunctioned, Ayad's respirator would shut down and she could be dead within two hours.

There were no skilled neurosurgeons. The eight-hour drive to get treatment in Egypt could kill her. Because of the cordon around the Gaza Strip, it was unclear whether she could make it to medical care in Israel.

"I have a feeling there's no way I can help her," Fawzi Nabulsia, 57, director of the intensive care unit, said.

Shifa Hospital has once again become the ground zero of both Palestinian suffering and hope.

The doctors there are accustomed to the violence in the region, having provided treatment through two intifadas, or uprisings against Israel. But nothing had prepared them for the chaos that began on Saturday when Israel launched its air offensive.

"I saw the first intifada and second intifada, but what I saw this time I have never seen in my life," Dr Nabulsia said.

"What we suffered in Shifa, entire countries could not bear. All the victims of Gaza, it seemed, came to this hospital." On Tuesday evening, Shifa Hospital officials said they had treated 73 women and 150 children for injuries during the preceding 24 hours. Nine women and 22 children had died, Hassan Khalaf, a doctor and senior official at the hospital, said.

For the past four days, humanitarian groups have been sounding the alarm about growing shortages of medicine, food and other necessities.

On Tuesday, Israel began to allow some shipments of humanitarian aid into the densely populated area of 1.5 million people. Some of the medicines reached Shifa, but doctors said they required more assistance.

"We are in a very dire situation," Dr Khalaf said. Ten minutes after Israel attacked on Saturday, scores of patients began to flood into Shifa.

Only three doctors were on duty, Ayman al-Sahabani recalled. "We were not prepared for a day like this."

In hours, the scores became hundreds. More doctors arrived. But still the surgeons and operating rooms were insufficient.

"Many people died while they were waiting to enter the operating rooms. Some died in the lobby of the hospital waiting to enter the reception area," Hussein Ashor, the hospital's director, said.

"There were not enough beds, so we pulled out the curtains and lay them on the ground, and we put patients on the curtains. The floor of the reception was covered with blood."

Some doctors performed operations in the hospital corridors, forced to use only local anaesthetic and unsterilised equipment, Hamid Rashid, an orthopaedic surgeon, said.

"It was like a natural disaster," he said. "I was looking at the faces of patients. I feared I would find among them one of my sons or relatives."

On Sunday men believed to be Hamas fighters grabbed a patient, accusing him of being an Israeli collaborator. The patient had been inside a prison that was hit by a missile. The gunmen shot him dead. "They took revenge," Dr Khalaf said.

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