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STORY: WHO / NORTHERN GAZA HOSPITALS
TRT: 03:31
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WHO ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 20 DECEMBER 2023, ¬ AL AHLI HOSPITAL, NORTH GAZA
1. Wide shot, exterior Al Ahli hospital
2. UPSOUND (English) Health Care Worker and Sean Casey, Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, WHO:
“You said there was an attack on the courtyard here. - *inaudible*. and the rocket. - When did that happen? - This was the 17th - 17th of October. - Yeah.
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, WHO:
“What we found here is a hospital that's really almost completely stopped functioning. Two days ago, a number of staff were detained. Just last Saturday, we visited Al-Shifa and they were telling us how they were sending surgical cases here because a lot had some of the only operating theatres left in northern Gaza and Gaza City, and those are now no longer functional. They don't have specialists, they don't have surgeons, they don't have power. They don't have water. They don't have food. We brought some medicines and medical supplies today. And we're going to go see the 80 patients who are still here who are sheltering in the church on this site and in the orthopaedic building. But they're not able to perform surgery. They're able to only provide, pain management, some wound care, some trauma stabilization. They're doing their best, with the very small team of only about ten clinical staff left at this hospital.”
4. UPSOUND (English) Health Care Worker and Sean Casey, Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, WHO:
“And so what services are you providing now? - So we are now mainly first aid, dressing, antibiotic coverage. Whatever we can.”
5. Med shot, external shot at hospital
6. Med shot, with body bags on the ground
7. Med shot, hospital and the church
8. Various shots, church
9. UPSOUND (English) Health Care Worker, UN staff, Sean Casey, Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, WHO:
“This is where they bought patients to…? UN staff …for recovery? - No, this is part of the inpatient department, so it’s a very small hospital so we don’t have much space to put the wounded.”
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, WHO:
“I'm currently in a church that is on the grounds of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. This church has been turned into an inpatient ward with um, very serious cases, children, women, elderly people, post-operative cases, people with external fixator, people on IV fluids, small babies. The few hospital staff who are left here. About ten hospital staff are caring for patients in this church building with patients literally sleeping on the church pews.”
11. Various shots, inside the church with patients, family members and health care workers
12. Various shots, destroyed buildings and people on the streets
WHO and UN partners undertook another high-risk joint mission today (20 Dec) to Al-Ahli Arab and Al-Shifa hospitals in northern Gaza. UN teams delivered medicines, IV fluids and supplies for surgery, treating the wounded, and supporting women giving birth.
However, aid workers struggled to describe the immense impact recent attacks have had on these health facilities, and the catastrophic conditions remaining patients and health workers face.
Al-Ahli Hospital has been overwhelmed with patients needing emergency care. In its courtyard, bodies were placed in rows as they couldn’t be given safe and dignified burials.
Until two days ago, Al-Ahli was northern Gaza’s last hospital functioning where injured people could undergo surgery. But UN teams learned today that its operating theatres are no long functioning due to the depletion, or complete absence, of specialists, power, fuel, water, food and medical supplies.
That has left north Gaza with no functional hospital. Only four hospitals operate at a minimum level, providing very limited care. About 10 health workers, all doctors and nurses, continue to provide basic first aid, pain management and wound care. 80 injured patients, including older people and small children, are sheltering in a church within the hospital grounds and its orthopedic section.
They included a 10-year old girl who lost her leg and had no family left to care for her, and an older man awaiting surgery for a gun wound to the chest he may never get, whose entire family had been killed.
WHO will keep striving to supply health facilities in northern Gaza. But without medicines and other essential needs, all patients will die slowly and painfully.
According to WHO, without medicines and other essential needs, all patients will die slowly and painfully. More than ever, a humanitarian ceasefire is needed now to reinforce and restock remaining health facilities, deliver medical services needed by thousands of injured people and those needing other essential care, and, above all, to stop the bloodshed and death.
