- NGO UK-Med set up field hospital in Rafah, Gaza amid ‘staggering scale of need’
The first British-funded field hospital has opened in Gaza to treat patients for conditions ranging from minor illnesses to injuries as serious as bullet wounds.
The hospital was set up by NGO UK-Med, which sends NHS staff around the world to help during international emergencies.
It is based near Rafah, in the Gaza strip, where around 1.5million Palestinian people are now living after being forced to flee from other areas.
UK-Med chief executive David Wightwick said that the ‘scale of need’ for hospital care in the area is ‘simply staggering’.
Speaking in Al Mawasi, on the southern coast of Gaza he said that there were not many services available and that healthcare had been ‘eroded to the extent that if you are sick, if you are ill, if you are wounded, you are in a very difficult situation’.
The first British-funded field hospital has opened in Gaza to treat patients for conditions ranging from minor illnesses to injuries as serious as bullet wounds
The hospital was set up by NGO UK-Med, which sends NHS staff around the world to help during international emergencies
The field hospital was dispatched from Manchester and, when complete, will be the size of two football pitches and treat around 250 people each day.
When the trucks from UK-Med were delayed at the Gaza border, Mr Wightwick’s team started the building work using timber from buildings that had been destroyed nearby, the BBC reports.
He said that a much negotiation was needed to get the land for the hospital and get the equipment and supplies over the border.
Mr Wightwick also said there was a challenge in finding staff and communicating as none of their mobile phones or the internet are working.
‘Everything somehow has to be made to work in order to bring essential urgent life-saving services to people,’ he told the BBC.
UK-Med say their team are already treating nearly 100 patients each day at the hospital.
Mr Wightwick has said that medics have seen ‘acute malnutrition in very young children’ as they run mobile clinics which extend into Gaza.
A team of surgeons is also based at the Al Aqsa hospital, which is the only one currently running in the centre of the strip.
The hospital wards and corridors are filled with patients and their families, the BBC reports.
It is based near Rafah, in the Gaza strip, where around 1.5million Palestinian people are now living after being forced to flee from other areas
UK-Med chief executive David Wightwick said that the ‘scale of need’ for hospital care in the area is ‘simply staggering’
When they visited, they saw a 12-year-old boy, Anas, being sent to surgery with a broken leg and a wounded face.
He told the BBC that he was playing when his neighbourhood was bombed, injuring him, and killing his mother and baby brother who was just six months old.
Anas was treated by UK-Med orthopaedic trauma surgeon Saba Papuashvili, who called the boy ‘brave’. His surgery was successful and he will recover.
Anaesthetist Judith Kendall said she was shocked by the number of children who are coming in with severe injuries.
Hospitals in Gaza, as well as being unable to cope with the number of patients, are also being attacked by Israeli forces as they say Hamas are using them for cover.
The Hamas-run health authorities deny this.