Gaza Strip – Sitting in her wheelchair, Saida Barbakh seems to be round on the crowded classroom in a United Nations-run faculty in Khan Younis that’s her present dwelling. She sighs deeply.
The 62-year-old bone most cancers affected person’s medicine had run out a number of days earlier. She had been handled at Al Makassed Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem, and following a profitable but sophisticated surgical procedure, she returned to the Gaza Strip on October 5, two days earlier than the warfare started.
“I used to be supposed to return after two weeks for a medical check-up,” she says. “I didn’t count on issues to succeed in this stage of hazard.”
The UN-run faculties, the place 725,000 displaced Palestinians have taken shelter from unrelenting Israeli bombardment for greater than a month, are removed from ideally suited to accommodate sick sufferers. A scarcity of electrical energy, clear operating water, meals and bedding, and insufficient washroom services, are turning the faculties into Petri dishes for an outbreak of ailments, primarily respiratory infections, diarrhoea and pores and skin rashes.
“I really feel that I want care and sleep and I can not transfer lots on this wheelchair,” Barbakh stated. “Dwelling on this ugly and painful warfare with most cancers is de facto terrible.”
Barbakh, who’s from the city of Bani Suhaila east of Khan Younis, was initially recovering on the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the one one for most cancers therapy within the Gaza Strip.
However the hospital was pressured to shut down its providers on November 1, after operating out of gas resulting from Israel’s persevering with blockade of the Gaza Strip. The constructing had additionally sustained heavy injury from repeated Israeli assaults on the encompassing areas, the Ministry of Well being stated. Greater than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombing of Gaza since October 7.
Barbakh was amongst 70 most cancers sufferers evacuated from the hospital to go south, however after her home was broken because of Israeli bombing – turning a lot of the realm right into a ghost city – she and her household had no selection however to remain at a shelter faculty.
Solely medical care obtainable
The Palestinian Authority well being minister, Mai al-Kaila, warns that the lives of those 70 most cancers sufferers are beneath critical risk due to the dearth of therapy and well being follow-ups.
Total, the two,000 most cancers sufferers within the Gaza Strip live in “catastrophic well being circumstances because of the continuing Israeli aggression on the Strip and the mass displacement”, al-Kaila stated.
Subhi Sukeyk, the director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, stated greater than a month after the beginning of the warfare, medicines have run out.
“Specialised remedies for most cancers sufferers, comparable to chemotherapy and therapy that mixes a number of medicines, can’t be offered,” Sukeyk informed Al Jazeera. “Some sufferers have been transferred to Dar Essalam Hospital in Khan Younis, which they are saying is protected, however there isn’t any protected place in Gaza in any respect.”
Dar Essalam Hospital can not provide medicines or most cancers therapy, however it does present sufferers with primary medical care, he stated.
However a few of the most cancers sufferers have requested to affix their households within the shelter faculties to die amongst them as a result of they know that the hospitals can not present them with therapy, he added.
“Daily, we lose two or three most cancers sufferers,” Sukeyk stated. “On the evening the sufferers have been transferred from the Turkish Friendship Hospital,” he says, “4 of them died. The earlier evening six sufferers died.”
On the Turkish Friendship Hospital, only some sufferers stay. Amongst them is Salem Khreis, a 40-year-old leukaemia affected person.
“There’s no medication or therapy,” he stated. “I can’t clarify how horrible the ache is.”
Khreis stated he appreciates that the medical doctors are at all times by the facet of their sufferers, however past their reassurances, there’s nothing else they’ll do.
“They stand with us and inform us they’re with us, however their eyes are filled with unhappiness and helplessness from how a lot we’re struggling,” he stated.
“Can we die from the siege? Is it not sufficient for Israel that we endure from most cancers? Save us from this injustice.”
Final week, Turkey’s well being minister stated his nation and Egypt had agreed to ship 1,000 most cancers sufferers and different injured civilians needing pressing care in Gaza to Turkey for therapy. No different particulars have been supplied.
No medical referrals or permits authorized
The Gaza Strip’s healthcare services have been stretched beneath a 16-year Israeli blockade. Earlier than October 7, Sukeyk stated, he handed the Well being Ministry about 1,000 medical referrals for most cancers sufferers yearly for his or her correct therapy and care in additional specialised hospitals outdoors the besieged territory.
Sufferers and their relations should submit a medical allow request, which may solely be authorized by the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration. Total, about 20,000 sufferers per 12 months sought permits from Israel to depart the Gaza Strip for healthcare earlier than the warfare, nearly a 3rd of them youngsters.
Based on the World Well being Group (WHO), Israel authorized about 63 p.c of those medical exit functions in 2022.
That each one has come to a grinding halt. Hospitals overcrowded due to a excessive variety of Palestinians wounded in Israeli assaults have began discharging most cancers sufferers to make room for these injured.
Sukeyk stated a few of the most cancers sufferers who have been ready for his or her medical permits have died, however is unable to verify the precise quantity due to the chaos of the warfare.
“If a affected person hasn’t been receiving therapy, then the unfold of most cancers of their physique is inevitable and they’ll die,” he stated.
Reem Asraf, who has thyroid most cancers, has additionally run out of her medicine. She was purported to get handled at Al Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, however the Beit Hanoon crossing, generally known as Erez to Israelis, within the north has not been in operate since October 7.
Asraf underwent two surgical procedures together with one to take away the tumour from her neck, however wants additional therapy and check-ups.
“I can not transfer and even stand because of the deterioration of my well being and the dearth of painkillers essential for my situation,” she stated, talking from Khan Younis after she was displaced from her dwelling in Gaza Metropolis.
“Within the face of the scenes of demise and destruction, phrases can not describe what we most cancers sufferers are struggling by.”
