Fears are increasing about the worsening health sector crisis in Gaza, with warnings that hospitals and health centers will stop working due to fuel shortages, in conjunction with transport companies announcing the suspension of their services to medical teams as of September 16.
The Director-General of the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Munir Al-Bursh, said that the World Health Organization has decided to stop supplying diesel to more than 20 hospitals and health centers in the Strip, starting next Saturday, due to a lack of funding.
Al-Bersh warned that the fuel crisis was pushing hospitals toward a “complete halt,” saying that the limited quantities arriving in the Gaza Strip “barely keep health facilities operating.”
He added that the interruption of supplies does not only affect electrical generators, but, according to him, it may lead to the cessation of operating rooms, intensive care units, respirators, and oxygen stations, and threatens children in incubators, dialysis patients, the wounded, and those suffering from chronic diseases, in addition to disrupting ambulances and cold chains for medicines and vaccines.
Al-Bersh called on the World Health Organization, donors and the international community to ensure the continued supply of fuel and oils in sufficient quantities and their safe and sustainable access to health facilities.
This comes in light of the shortage of oils and spare parts needed to operate hospital generators.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Sunday that a number of electrical generators had stopped during the past few days due to the lack of oil, spare parts, and sufficient quantities of fuel, warning that the crisis was making it more difficult to provide hospitals’ daily electricity needs.
In another development that exacerbates the pressure on the health sector, transportation companies announced that, as of September 16, they will suspend bus services that transport medical workers from their places of residence to hospitals.
Health sector workers say that stopping these services may prevent doctors and nurses from reaching their workplaces, at a time when the sector is already suffering from a severe transportation crisis.
Speaking to BBC News Arabic, a medical worker said that the crews were informed that the buses transporting employees from their homes to their workplaces would stop during the coming period.
He added that workers depend on these buses in light of the difficulty of finding other means of transportation, noting that traveling short distances within Gaza may take at least half an hour, in addition to waiting for hours sometimes and being unable to arrive at work on time.
Another medical worker said that suspending the transportation service would particularly affect the ability of crews to reach Al-Shifa Hospital.
He added, "Instead of coming to the hospital every day, we may have to reduce the number of days we can work," which he said would in turn lead to a reduction in the daily medical services provided by the hospital.
A third worker explained that the problem does not lie in the shortage of doctors or nursing staff, but rather in the ability of workers to reach hospitals.
He said that more than half of the workers at Al-Shifa Hospital currently reside in areas south of the Gaza Strip, either because they are unable to return to northern Gaza or because there is no home or shelter they can return to there.
He added that the roads do not allow easy movement, while the individual means of transportation that employees relied on have become rare on the streets of the Gaza Strip.
On the ground, medical sources and ambulance and emergency teams in the Gaza Strip said that a Palestinian was killed and at least 17 others were injured, Monday, as a result of Israeli gunfire and raids in various areas of the Strip.
Medical sources at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said that a Palestinian was killed and others were injured as a result of what they described as “direct shooting” near the yellow line in the Mawasi Rafah area, south of the Gaza Strip.
