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About 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are facing tragic conditions, in light of the crisis that hospitals and the health sector are experiencing as a result of the continuation of the Israeli war on Gaza for the 24th day in a row.
Special scenes from Al Jazeera showed the difficult conditions that the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City is going through, as it is overcrowded with displaced people and pregnant women, in conjunction with a severe shortage of capabilities and difficult conditions facing medical personnel in dealing with daily cases.
The head of the department at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Dr. Aed Abu Hasira, said, “The rate of caesarean section has increased significantly, in addition to the rise in the rate of miscarriage for pregnant women by about 3 times the normal rate.”
He added, “Pregnant women face difficult circumstances, especially since most of the casualties that arrive as a result of Israeli bombing suffer from placental abruption.”
He pointed out that a large number of injuries resulted in the direct death of the pregnant woman and the fetus, while specialized teams try to deal with other injuries with surgical operations, but ultimately lose the lives of the mother and fetus due to the severity of the injury.
Abu Hasira explained that pregnant women live a feeling of fear due to the lack of a suitable environment for childbirth due to hospitals being overcrowded with the injured and victims, pointing out that maternity departments were affected due to the lack of capabilities and their inability to provide appropriate service, and the deficit also included medical personnel, tools and rooms, which increased the birth rate. Early.
The maternity department suffers more than other departments at Al-Shifa Medical Complex because it deals with the mother before and after her birth, as well as with the fetus, which needs superior health care, at a time when the hospital is facing a severe crisis of resources, according to Abu Hasira.
He stressed that doctors working in the maternity ward are called on a daily basis to deal with cases of pregnant women injured as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.
He explained that the maternity department had to remove the uterus of many women, even though they were young, in order to preserve their lives, especially since doctors were unable to deal with the complications of various surgical operations.
50 thousand pregnant women in Gaza without services
The reality of the obstetrics and gynecology department and pregnant women at Al-Shifa Medical Complex is no different from other hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
On October 16, the United Nations Population Fund in Palestine revealed that there are 50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who cannot obtain basic health services.
The Fund added in a statement on the “X” platform, “50,000 pregnant women in the Gaza Strip cannot obtain health services. 5,500 of them will give birth during this October.”
The Fund stressed that these women “need urgent health care and protection,” and urged all parties to “abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
The fund’s director, Dominic Allen, said in press statements, “The health care system itself in Gaza is in a sensitive situation. It is under attack, and is on the verge of collapse.”
Allen added, “These pregnant women, whom we are extremely concerned about, have nowhere to go,” stressing that they face “unimaginable” challenges.
He continued, “Imagine going through this process in those final stages and the last three months of pregnancy before giving birth, with possible complications, without clothes, without hygiene and support, without knowing what will happen to them the next day, the next hour, and the next minute.”
He stressed that “the stories coming from the hospitals were horrific, and that one of the midwives in the maternity hospital in Gaza told him that since the beginning of the aggression, some midwives were not even able to reach the maternity ward to provide assistance due to the unsafe environment.”
