Media Home
UN Web TV
UN Audiovisual Library
UN PhotoUN / GAZA WHO CASEY PRESSER
Download
There is no media available to download.
Share
STORY: UN / GAZA WHO CASEY PRESSER
TRT: 04:34
SOURCE: UNIFEED / WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 17 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN headquarters
17 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Various shots, WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordinator for Gaza Sean Casey at press room dais
SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I saw evidence again and again of the simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe that's unfolding. We see it every day in Gaza, getting worse and worse. And the collapse of the health system day by day, with hospitals closing, health workers fleeing, casualties continuing to stream. And lack of access to medicines and medical supplies, a lack of access to fuel to run the hospital generators to keep the lights on, to keep the machines running.”
FILE – WHO - 05 JANUARY 2024, KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA STRIP, PALESTINE
3. Wide shot, Casey and staff at field hospital at Nasser Stadium
FILE – WHO - 20 DECEMBER 2023, AL-SHIFA MEDICAL COMPLEX, GAZA, PALESTINE
4. Wide shot, exterior, busy medical complex
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I'm standing in the surgical building of Al Shifa hospital, where two days ago, this hospital was hit by artillery shells.”
6. Tracking shot, damaged corridors and rooms
17 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (WHO):
“We have been and continue to try to deliver critical medicines, medical consumables, fuel to the functioning hospitals that are still working, trying to continue to surge in additional health workers, doctors and nurses to meet the enormous demand of trauma patients, but also patients with every other clinical presentation that you would normally see; the pregnant women who still need antenatal care and who still need to deliver, people who require dialysis, etc.”
FILE – WHO - 05 JANUARY 2024, KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA STRIP, PALESTINE
8. Various shots, Casey being briefed by medical staff
FILE – WHO - 23 DECEMBER 2023, AL-SHIFA MEDICAL COMPLEX, GAZA
9. Wide shot, exterior, busy medical complex
10. Pan right, medical supplies being delivered to hospital ward over crowded with patients, IDPs and health care workers
17 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (WHO):
“Basically, the whole hospital was filled with displaced persons. Thousands of them, reportedly tens of thousands of them living in the operating theatres, living in the corridors, living in the stairs, and the emergency department seeing hundreds of patients a day, mostly trauma, with only a handful, literally 5 or 6 doctors or nurses to care for all of those people. Patients on the floor, so many that you could barely move without stepping on somebody's hands or feet. In Al-Ahli Hospital, also in the north, I saw patients who were lying on church pews, basically waiting to die in a hospital that had no fuel, no power, no water, very, very little in the way of medical supplies, and only a handful of staff remaining to take care of them.”
FILE – WHO - 23 DECEMBER 2023, AL-SHIFA MEDICAL COMPLEX, GAZA
12. Various shots, overcrowded ward with patients in chairs and on the floor being treated by medical staff
FILE – WHO - 20 DECEMBER 2023, AL AHLI HOSPITAL, NORTH GAZA
13. Wide shot, bombed area, exterior Al Ahli hospital
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (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 very serious cases, children, women, elderly people.”
15. Tracking shot, inside the church with patients, family members and health care workers
17 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Sean Casey, the Emergency Medical Team Coordinator, Gaza, World Health Organization (WHO):
“I saw patients in hospitals every day with severe burns, with open fractures, waiting hours or days for care, and they would often ask me for food or water. It demonstrates the level of desperation that we see. So, in addition to their injuries and illnesses, they're just crying out for the basics of life. What could change those dynamics? Access is an enormous one. The ability to move people and supplies safely and quickly. We're talking about lifesaving skills and lifesaving supplies. Overall, most critical need is really a cease fire, because everything short of that is simply addressing needs on a day-by-day basis.”
17. Various shots, end of presser
Upon his return from a five-week deployment in Gaza, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Medical Team Coordinator in the Palestinian enclave Sean Casey, today (17 Jan) said, “overall, most critical need is really a cease fire, because everything short of that is simply addressing needs on a day-by-day basis.”
Talking to reporters in New York, he said, “I saw evidence again and again of the simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe that's unfolding. We see it every day in Gaza, getting worse and worse. And the collapse of the health system day by day, with hospitals closing, health workers fleeing, casualties continuing to stream. And lack of access to medicines and medical supplies, a lack of access to fuel to run the hospital generators to keep the lights on, to keep the machines running.”
Casey, who has been reporting from the ground as his team delivered supplies and assessed conditions in medical facilities in Gaza, said, “we have been and continue to try to deliver critical medicines, medical consumables, fuel to the functioning hospitals that are still working, trying to continue to surge in additional health workers, doctors and nurses to meet the enormous demand of trauma patients, but also patients with every other clinical presentation that you would normally see; the pregnant women who still need antenatal care and who still need to deliver, people who require dialysis, etc.”
He reported that at Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the largest hospital in Gaza, “basically, the whole hospital was filled with displaced persons. Thousands of them, reportedly tens of thousands of them living in the operating theatres, living in the corridors, living in the stairs, and the emergency department seeing hundreds of patients a day, mostly trauma, with only a handful, literally 5 or 6 doctors or nurses to care for all of those people.”
Casey said he saw “patients on the floor, so many that you could barely move without stepping on somebody's hands or feet.”
In Al-Ahli Hospital, he saw “patients who were lying on church pews, basically waiting to die in a hospital that had no fuel, no power, no water, very, very little in the way of medical supplies, and only a handful of staff remaining to take care of them.”
The Emergency Coordinator said, “I saw patients in hospitals every day with severe burns, with open fractures, waiting hours or days for care, and they would often ask me for food or water. It demonstrates the level of desperation that we see. So, in addition to their injuries and illnesses, they're just crying out for the basics of life. What could change those dynamics? Access is an enormous one. The ability to move people and supplies safely and quickly. We're talking about lifesaving skills and lifesaving supplies.”
During his deployment, Casey visited six medical facilities out of 16 that are still functioning, and 36 that were operational before the war.
