Four days after air attacks against the Gaza Strip began hospitals are already overwhelmed by an influx of wounded patients. Two Médecins Sans Frontières teams are helping to ease the hospitals' burdens and the first MSF truckload of medical supplies and drugs entered the Gaza Strip yesterday.
An MSF doctor and nurse are providing support to the hospital in Shifa, Gaza’s referral hospital, to triage the wounded and refer patients to the MSF clinic in Gaza City, easing the hospital’s workload. The hospital is already overwhelmed by the influx of wounded patients. A second team, including a doctor, three nurses and a physical therapist, has treated approximately a dozen wounded patients in the Gaza City clinic and twenty more were already scheduled for today.
This afternoon, a third MSF teams hopes to reopen MSF’s second pediatric clinic in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, to treat pediatric emergencies and help relieve some of the burden at Kemal Edwan hospital, which is also crowded with wounded patients.
A fourth team is planned for our Khan Yunis clinic in the southern Gaza Strip, if security conditions allow, to relieve the Al Nasser hospital (Khan Yunis) and the Al Najar hospital (Rafah).
An initial MSF truck carrying medical supplies and drugs managed to enter the Gaza Strip yesterday. These supplies allow us to re-stock our emergency inventories and continue to supply hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip.