Burned-out health workers juggling overwhelming workloads
Amid constant bombings and evacuation orders, Palestinian health care workers, including MSF staff, have been risking their lives to provide medical care. They have been forced to amputate limbs without anesthesia, treat mass crush and burn injuries with extremely limited supplies, and try to work as Israeli forces have repeatedly besieged hospitals like Nasser and Al-Shifa.
Throughout the war, MSF has witnessed patients dying on hospital floors, as hospitals have been unable to cope with the overwhelming number of patients. In June, following intense bombings by Israeli forces in the Middle Area of Gaza, MSF teams treated an overwhelming number of severely injured patients at Al-Aqsa and Nasser hospitals. MSF Medical Referent Karin Huster described “kids completely grey or white from the shock, burnt, screaming for their parents. Many of them are not screaming because they are in shock.”
Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, who worked as an MSF medical team leader at Nasser hospital, described the scene of a mass casualty incident in July. “In the emergency department, there was blood everywhere and I had to kneel to see the patients on the floor. Patients were sprawled everywhere, because there were no beds left. I could feel my knees getting wet from the blood.”