Sick, wounded treated in hospital ‘corridors, on the floor, outdoors’: UN officials

Conditions at Gaza’s largest hospital – Al-Shifa – “are disastrous” with emergency rooms overflowing and doctors forced to treat the sick and injured in “corridors, on the floor, and outdoors”, two senior UN officials have warned.

The heads of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said there are almost two patients for every bed available at the Al-Shifa Hospital and the number of wounded is increasing by the hour.

“Patients are undergoing immense and unnecessary pain as medicines and anaesthetics are running out. In addition, tens of thousands of displaced people have sought shelter in the hospital’s parking lots and yards,” UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a joint statement.

“Medical facilities are running out of supplies and fuel. So far, no fuel has been allowed into the Gaza Strip, including to Al-Shifa Hospital for over one month now,” they said.

“Without fuel, hospitals and other essential facilities such as desalination plants and bakeries cannot operate, and more people will most certainly die as a result.”