[News] Gaza's heath workers and aid agencies face impossible choices

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/13/gazas-heath-workers-and-aid-agencies-face-impossible-choices/>
Gaza's heath workers and aid agencies face impossible choices
Ana Vračar
January 13, 2024
------------------------------
[image:
2023-Gaza-bombings-attacks-on-healthcare-in-Palestine-healthcare-in-Gaza-hospitals-under-attack.jpg]

Children were injured as a result of a targeting in the Nuseirat camp in
the central Gaza Strip (Photo: Al Awda Health and Community Association)

Triage is the term that most accurately summarizes what is happening to
health services in Gaza. Every hour, health workers have to determine who
among the dozens of patients lying on the hospital floors should be treated
first. Doctors and nurses also have to decide who gets paracetamol or
ibuprofen for procedures that would usually be performed while patients are
under anesthesia, and who goes without even that.

There is also a third form of triage going on in the proximity of Gaza
these days, and that one falls upon the people trying to get supplies into
the Strip. Despite reassurances that they would allow aid to be distributed
more easily, Israeli authorities are still obstructing deliveries. Knowing
that only a fraction of what is needed will eventually be allowed in,
international and humanitarian organizations are choosing—very, very
carefully—what they will load on to their trucks.

It’s a difficult choice, explained
<https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1745089720546164760> Michael Ryan,
Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health
Emergencies Program, during the organization’s beginning-of-the-year press
conference. “Do you replace a truck of food with a truck of lab supplies?
Which truck has more priority?“
*Read: **2023 was deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since
2005*
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/01/10/2023-was-deadliest-year-for-palestinians-in-the-west-bank-since-2005/>

There is no good answer to Ryan’s question. Almost everyone
<https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Gaza_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Nov2023_Feb2024.pdf>
in Gaza is facing food insecurity. All children
<https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-risk-famine-gaza-strip>
below the age of 5—335,000 of them—are hungry and facing a lifetime of
struggle with the consequences of stunting. Due to the food shortage, more
than half of pregnant and breastfeeding women only have access to limited
types of food, which impacts theirs and children’s health, according to a
testimony
<https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/98/international-development-committee/news/199273/healthcare-situation-in-gaza-idc-update-from-unwra-medical-aid-for-palestinians-and-the-palestinian-red-crescent-society/>
by Rohan Talbot from Medical Aid for Palestinians, heard by the
International Development Committee of the British Parliament.

On the other hand, the lack of medical supplies, combined with relentless
bombardments, has brought about the total collapse of the public health
system in Gaza. For decades, the Central Public Health Laboratory in Gaza
ensured high-quality public health services. Located north of the Wadi Gaza
line, the laboratory is no longer functional. The lack of laboratory
capacities means that it is only possible to evaluate the spread of
infectious diseases from what is obvious at first glance. There is no way
to confirm what are the specific causes leading to e.g. respiratory problems

“We don’t have the means to verify why specific communicable diseases are
appearing. We don’t have a way to see what particular pathogen is causing
them,” said Teresa Zakaria from WHO’s Health Emergency Program. Because of
that, it is impossible to know which measures should be put in place to
mitigate the increase in morbidity.

Even if the WHO were able to pinpoint which measures are needed right now,
it is extremely unlikely they would be permitted to implement them. Like
all other organizations trying to maintain a lifeline to Gaza, the UN’s
health agency is not really allowed in. “We have the supplies, the teams,
and the plans in place. What we don’t have is access,” said WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The WHO had planned 7 missions into Gaza since December 26, but was forced
to cancel all of them as Israel failed to provide security guarantees. It’s
not just the WHO’s experience. Of the 21 missions that various UN bodies
had planned in January 2024 alone, 16 were canceled because of the lack of
cooperation by the Israeli occupation, reported Richard Peeperkorn, head of
the WHO’s office for the occupied Palestinian territories.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to target hospitals and other medical
infrastructure in Gaza. Four members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society
staff were killed
<https://twitter.com/PalestineRCS/status/1745151413280518375/photo/1> on
January 10 when Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) hit their vehicle. Days
before, the 5-year-old daughter of a staff member of Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) died
<https://www.msf.org/gaza-msf-condemns-strike-shelter-killed-staff-members-five-year-old-daughter>
from the consequences of an IOF attack on the shelter where MSF workers and
their families were seeking refuge.

Those who are still alive share the faith of their patients. Ghada Al
Jadba, UNRWA health officer, stressed to the UK International Development
Committee that health workers are themselves displaced, having no safe
space to sleep or water to drink. Tents, said Al Jadba, are a luxury. She
also said that people were increasingly feeling dehumanized and alienated
as a result of Israel’s attacks and, presumably, the unwillingness of the
international community to act to stop the genocide immediately.

For those on the ground, safeguarding the remnants of the health system in
Gaza is looking more and more like “mission impossible,” as Al Jadba put it.

*People’s Health Dispatch* *is a fortnightly bulletin published by
the* *People’s
Health Movement* <http://www.phmovement.org/> *and Peoples Dispatch. For
more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click* *here*
<https://peoples-health-dispatch.ghost.io/>*.*
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