A shortage of medical supplies and a massive influx of patients at Gaza’s al-Hilal Hospital in Rafah have forced doctors to make life-or-death decisions for pregnant mothers and newborns daily, Al Jazeera reported.
“We fear that what happened in the northern and central Gaza strip, in terms of electricity outages, will happen to us,” Dr. Ashraf Mahmoud al-Beshity told Al Jazeera.
Such power cuts would put the UN-estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza at extreme risk.
Nearly 15,000 babies are expected to be born in Gaza between early October and the end of 2023, all of them at “grave risk amid escalating violence” and with “medical care, water and food at crisis levels,” Save the Children has said.
“About 15 percent of women giving birth are likely to experience pregnancy or birth-related complications,” it said in a press release on Tuesday.
“Clean water is scarce, food and medicines are running low, and pregnant or breastfeeding women are struggling to find food. Hospitals and health facilities already facing severe shortages are under attack, putting thousands of patients, including pregnant women and newborns, in grave danger,” the statement noted.
“The scenes at the hospitals were horrible. Pregnant women in the hallways screaming in pain. Unidentified newborn babies in incubators, without any living family members. The fuel had run out. I had to flee. I don’t know if they survived,” said Maha, a Save the Children staff member in Gaza who was displaced to the south but used to shelter outside Al Shifa Hospital.
At least 11,470 Palestinians have been killed, including nearly 8,000 women and children, and more than 29,200 others have been injured, according to the latest figures from Palestinian authorities.
