Gaza update : in Deir El Balah, MSF expands its activities to include pediatric hospitalization
Four weeks after opening its second field hospital in Deir Al Balah, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is expanding its medical activities to include pediatric hospitalization. Of the 10,692 outpatient consultations carried out, 40% were children under 14.
MSF medical teams are seeing see many children suffering from skin and respiratory tract infections, a direct result of the dire living conditions in the overcrowded camps. With winter approaching, it is anticipated that the number of severely ill children requiring specialized care could overwhelm the available resources.
“We are treating children with illnesses related to their dire living conditions, but when they leave the hospital, they return to the same place that is making them ill. It’s a vicious cycle that can only improve with a ceasefire now”, explains Sakib Burza, MSF Hospital Director.
Getting enough medical supplies into Gaza to open the pediatric activities has been extremely complicated. MSF repeats its call to Israeli authorities to urgently simplify and speed up administrative procedures to be able to get aid through Gaza as people desperately need it.
Almost 100,000 people have been injured since the beginning of the war while only 17 out of 36 hospitals are now partially functioning according to OCHA figures1. Field hospitals are not a solution, but a last resort in response to Israel’s destruction of the healthcare system.
Djann Jutzeler