Besieged hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis, Nasser Medical Complex, has become “place of death”, says United Nations official after aid visit.
At least eight patients at Nasser Hospital have died after generators shut off due to lack of fuel, said the Gaza Health Ministry.
Jonathan Whittall, the official with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described “appalling” conditions inside Nasser Hospital, which have transformed “a place of healing” to “a place of death.”
The senior humanitarian affairs officer with the OCHA, made his comments during a mission to the besieged hospital with the WHO and the Palestine Red Crescent to evacuate the most critically ill who have been trapped inside for weeks amid Israeli bombardments.
“There are 150 patients in one of these buildings. They have no food and water, no electricity. There’s very few doctors and nurses that are remaining inside this hospital. The conditions are appalling,” Whittall said in a video posted on social media.
“There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation. This has become a place of death, not a place of healing. This is a preventable tragedy that should not have happened,” he added.
Medical workers in the hospital are working under unbearable conditions, but are asking that the functions of the hospital be restored rather than to be evacuated, so that they can continue to help patients there, Al Jazeera reported.
“The last week has been miserable, it’s been a nightmare [for workers in the hospital under Israeli siege]. The things they’re seeing are traumatising and they’re asking for some sort of help. They’re asking, actually, not to be evacuated from the hospital but for the hospital to function. For the lights to be turned back on, for the medicine they need to treat the 150 patients that remain,” Dr Thaer Ahmad, a US-based emergency physician who spent several weeks volunteering at Nasser Hospital in January, told Al Jazeera.
“I spoke to one of the last surgeons remaining there, who sent a message to a group of physicians here in the States, and he asked us to advocate for the patients who are there. He told us, ‘I’m staring at patients, and they need my help, they need my care, and there’s nothing that I can do’”he added.
