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GAZA – When the truce was reached in the Gaza Strip, nurse Abdul Aziz al-Azayiza felt comfortable and thought that he and his colleagues working in the reception and emergency department of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip would finally breathe a sigh of relief. But the winds of this truce did not bring the desires of the ships of the medical crews, who did not feel any relief from the pressure on them.
With the end of the seventh day of the truce in Gaza, on Friday, and the resumption of Israeli bombardment, medical teams continue to work tirelessly to receive the wounded victims of the aggression in large numbers.
The Palestinian resistance and Israel reached an interim truce agreement that began on Friday, November 24, and ended on Friday morning. It provided for the exchange of prisoners between the two sides, and the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The number of dialysis patients at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza rises to 346 to increase the number of displaced people (Al-Jazeera)
No vacant beds
Despite the silence of guns and the buzzing of planes during the days of truce, and the cessation of casualties from the strikes reaching hospitals, the number of citizens receiving medical services did not decrease, and doctors and nurses did not find a breathing space.
The bed capacity of the hospitals is close to zero due to the large number of wounded who remain inmates and have not left. The pressure on the operating rooms remains the same, with many of the wounded waiting for their turn to undergo surgery.
Since the seventh of last October, Israel has waged a horrific war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 15,7 martyrs, 35,<> missing and about <>,<> wounded, in addition to the widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure.
Nurse Azayza explained that the biggest problem currently facing medical staff is the lack of beds to receive patients in need of hospitalization.
In the hospital "martyrs of Al-Aqsa" refers to an old man sitting in a wheelchair, saying to Al Jazeera Net, "As you can see, this man in a wheelchair needs to enter the hospital and treatment, but so far there is no empty bed for him." Al-Azayza stressed that the pressure on them as a result of the Israeli war remains the same.
"During the war, we used to deal with critical and moderate injuries from the bombing, and now we are dealing with ordinary and chronic diseases of citizens, with the problem of not having beds," he said during his work in the reception and emergency department.
Azayiza (left) calls for the transfer of the wounded who received their basic treatment to a field hospital (Al Jazeera)
Additional burdens
"Cases that were unable to reach the hospital during the war are arriving, such as internal medicine, heart attack and regular chronic diseases that have nothing to do with the war, and we have become overcrowded, despite the continued lack of equipment, medicines and medical staff, and we are dealing with all these cases beyond our capacity," al-Azayiza said.
The solution, he said, is to transfer many of the wounded who received their basic treatment to a field hospital, with the aim of increasing the hospital's bed capacity to be able to deal with "new cases".
The spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran, agrees with Al-Azayza in explaining the state of severe pressure the hospital is still experiencing.
Al-Daqran says – for Al Jazeera Net – that the hospital during the war can not receive regular cases caused by internal diseases, but they are heavily accepted during the days of the truce, which causes the continuation of the state of fatigue suffered by medical staff.
Another issue that increases the pressure on hospitals is the spread of infectious diseases such as gastroenteritis, especially among displaced people in shelters due to the lack of clean drinking water, as well as cases of pneumonia. "They used to not come to hospitals because of the Israeli aggression, but they came in abundance during the lull."
The lack of medicines and medical supplies also increases the burden of medical staff, and Daqran confirmed that hospitals have not yet received the necessary quantities of aid that entered the Gaza Strip as part of the truce agreement.
He pointed out that the wounded of the Israeli aggression are still in hospitals and have not left them due to the difficult nature of their injuries, which causes a decrease in the bed capacity in the hospital.
Non-injured patients currently attending the hospital due to internal diseases cannot find any beds, he said. "We have to put heart conditions and internal diseases in the corridors," he adds.
23 Gaza Strip hospitals out of service due to Israeli aggression (Al Jazeera)
Constant pressure
Regarding the pressure on the operating rooms, Al-Daqran stressed that the truce did not succeed in easing it, saying, "The problem is that there are many wounded waiting for their turn for a while to perform surgeries, and we need 15 days for this role to end without new wounded coming."
He touched on another issue that caused an increase in the demand for hospitals during the days of the truce, which is the malnutrition suffered by children due to the conditions of war and the continuation of the siege.
The spokesman called for the establishment of several field hospitals to ease the pressure on the current hospitals in the Gaza Strip, especially since 23 of them were out of service.
"We are suffering from severe pressure, for example, the number of dialysis patients at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital was only 146, and due to the increase in the number of displaced people, 346 people, and 4 out of 23 machines were disabled due to frequent use," he said.
The doctor Iyad Abu Zaher, Director General of the Martyrs of Al-Aqsa Hospital, had said – in a previous interview with Al Jazeera Net – that the hospital's situation is "catastrophic" and they are not looking for quality of service as much as "preserving lives."
Abu Zaher said they are forced to use the differentiation method in selecting the wounded who will enter the operating rooms, which leads to the death of some of them while waiting for their turn, pointing out that the displacement of residents in the northern Gaza Strip doubled the number of service recipients from the hospital, which greatly affected the progress of work.
He explained that the hospital's bed capacity has increased by 1000,<>% due to the large number of injured people, despite the lack of medicines and the exhaustion of medical staff, and said that the aid that entered through the Rafah crossing is not enough for the hospital for a day or two, and that many of the wounded urgently need to travel abroad.
Source : Al Jazeera