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Gaza- “The destruction of my home and the hospital,” said Alaa Al-Dali in a steady voice, to confirm the value of “His Highness Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Limbs” to him and to other amputation cases and those wounded in successive Israeli wars on the Gaza Strip.
Not only did Alaa (27 years old) prefer “Hamad Hospital,” as the people of Gaza call it for short, over his home, but he also considered that the hospital gave him his life back and made him able to continue his career as an athlete.
Alaa’s sports career almost stopped when, in 2018, he was injured by Israeli occupation forces fire, while participating in the peaceful activities of the “March of Return and Breaking the Siege”, east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, and his injury resulted in the amputation of his right leg.
Hamad Hospital was equipped with high standards and was located on a large area in the north of Gaza City. With Qatari fundingIt was opened in 2019, and is equipped with human expertise and the latest equipment and technologies. It is the only one in the Gaza Strip in terms of providing quality services related to rehabilitation, hearing, balance, and prosthetic limbs.
Free quality services
Alaa describes this hospital as “a world-class hospital on the land of Gaza.” The Palestinian cycling team player says, “I was one of the first people to benefit from the installation of an advanced prosthetic limb in Hamad Hospital, and I received advanced and completely free services, and even transportation from the city of Rafah to the hospital in the city.” Gaza was secured back and forth.”
The hospital stopped working due to the danger of the area in which it is located, which is considered one of the areas of the occupation forces’ ground incursion. This had a negative impact on Alaa, who had an appointment on the 15th of last month to have a new prosthetic limb installed, instead of the old one.
Since its opening and even before the Israeli war on Gaza, Alaa did not stop visiting the hospital, knowing its details and touring its buildings and courtyards, which made him stand amazed – according to his description – at “the occupation’s lies and claims.”
Alaa refers to these lies and allegations to what was stated in a press conference by a military spokesman for the occupation army, about the existence of a “resistance tunnel” within the walls of the hospital, which the hospital administration and those in charge of it refuted and proved invalid.
Alaa is currently suffering from pain and blood in the amputated part of his leg, and he feels great concern for the hospital, lest it be destroyed, disrupting its work, and stopping it from providing quality services to the sick and wounded in Gaza.
As for Alaa and the majority of recipients of Hamad Hospital services, their economic conditions do not allow them to bear the costs of treatment in hospitals outside the Gaza Strip, as the cost of the prosthetic limb, the rehabilitation that precedes the installation process, and the subsequent follow-up ranges from 20 to 30 thousand dollars.
The latest and most advanced
Just as Alaa regained his passion for sports, and the prosthetic limb enabled him to complete his career in cycling, and he formed a team with amputees and represented Palestine in its national team for people with disabilities, Muhammad Aliwa has a similar story, and the prosthetic limb brought him back to the football fields as well.
Muhammad (21 years old) was a player in local football clubs, when, as a sixteen-year-old child, he was injured by a bullet that kept him off the field, before he found his way back to it, with an artificial limb from Hamad Hospital. He told Al Jazeera Net, “All the doctors and technicians at Hamad Hospital did their duty and did not fall short. They treated me with great respect, appreciated my condition, and gave me hope again.”
For his part, A. says:By Dr. Ahmed Al-Absi, Head of the Prosthetic Limbs Department According to Al Jazeera Net, the hospital provides the latest and most advanced prosthetic limbs in the world.
Alaa and Muhammad are among 800 amputation cases who benefited from the installation of prosthetic limbs, in addition to 61 upper limb amputation cases, who were fitted with smart electronic limbs, at a cost of $15,000 per limb, under the supervision of a Qatari medical delegation that, over the past two years, made several visits to the hospital to train the Palestinian staff and assist in Installing these limbs.
Since its opening, the hospital has also provided 250 assistive prosthetic devices for spinal patients, and 1,000 bone-strengthening devices for patients suffering from curvature and paralysis, according to Al-Absi.
Al-Absi adds that many cases need maintenance, and many of them were forced to return to using crutches, due to the hospital stopping work, as a result of the Israeli war, which affected the previously sick and wounded, and deprived the new ones of benefiting from care and rehabilitation.
The need is greater after the war
In turn, the Director General of Hamad Hospital, Dr. Nour El-Din Salah, estimates that thousands of people wounded in the current war will be in dire need of hospital services related to hearing problems for children as a result of the force of explosions, and cases of fractures and amputations.
Before the outbreak of war, the hospital had a long list of patients and wounded, to benefit from high-quality services in 3 main areas: rehabilitation, hearing and balance, and prosthetic limbs.
In order to keep up with the expected pressure on the hospital, and the need of thousands of war-wounded people for its services, especially those related to prosthetic limbs, which are more expensive than other services, Dr. Salah calls on “donors to provide a helping hand and assistance to accelerate the integration of people with amputations into society.”
