‘Death awaits wounded at Gaza’s hospitals’

For nearly eight months, Ahmed Kouta had a front-row view of the devastation and mayhem caused by the Israeli military in Gaza. And for most of that time, the 23-year-old nurse from Canada wanted to cry and scream in desperation and anger.

Kouta worked in the emergency ward of al-Shifa Hospital, which handled many of the casualties in the brutal Israeli attacks that killed more than 37,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

Many of them could have been saved if the doctors had not been overworked and if the hospitals had enough medical supplies, he tells TRT World.

Israel’s crippling blockade has cut Gaza’s access to essential medicines. The Israeli military has attacked hospitals and arrested doctors. The scenes in the emergency and surgical rooms have been heart-wrenching.

“There was a time when a father, a doctor himself, had to perform an amputation on his own daughter," says Kouta.

"There was no anaesthesia, no proper medical equipment – just sheer desperation to save her life."

Kouta beamed the pictures of the dire situation in the hospital to his over 400,000 followers on Instagram.

Injured children would be brought with deep wounds, which required 10-20 stitches, he says.

“These children have to endure the pain because it's the only way they can be treated.”

Those who could have lived

Medical workers in al-Shifa’s emergency service had to face the grim reality that some of the injured who were brought in won't survive because they didn’t have enough beds for them.

"People would be coming in with complete amputations, burns, and giving out their last breaths," Kouta recounts.

"Some patients were alive, but their destination was clearly death because there was no way to treat them or get them to an operating room due to the tremendous number of patients waiting."

The World Health Organization says only about 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still able to function. In all, Israeli air strikes have damaged or destroyed nearly 84 percent of Gaza’s health facilities.

Hospitals are barely functional and at al-Shifa Hospital, surgeons were performing 10 to 30 life-saving surgical procedures a day.

“The hours keep ticking, patients keep pouring in, and there’s no time for medical workers to rest. Because if they want to rest or say, ‘I'm not going to do this anymore,’ then a lot of cases are going to be just waiting for the moment of death.” says Kouta.

When asked about the conditions of the hospitals in Gaza, Kouta says the situation is dire. Two or three patients share a bed. Hallways are crowded with the injured who have nowhere else to go.

"So when new patients come in, there are no chances for you to accept them. Thus, you have to give out the treatment outside.”

'Human beings like everyone else'

Tents were set up in the hospital's garden, and Kouta often had to administer medications to patients waiting outside.

“You have to go and look for them outside or their family member would come and say ‘Please give the medication to our patient, he's laying outside on the floor.’”

A shortage of medical equipment compounded the difficulties medics were already facing in providing care to patients.

"All the corridors – all the hallways in al-Shifa Hospital – were completely full. The lack of equipment just gives you a harder time in order to give treatment, because when you need specific equipment, you don't have that," he says.

More than 2 million people in Gaza were already struggling to survive under Israel’s 16-year blockade when Tel Aviv launched the devastating war in October.

“I want to say the people in Gaza are human beings like everyone else. They have a heart, they have feelings, they have a life, they have a dream, they have family, everything,” says Kouta.