Gaza – Ma’an – In front of the Al-Quds field hospital affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, in the sidewalks of Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip, stands Maysaa Ayoub (30 years old), who is seven months pregnant, supporting her back with her hands.
Maysaa waits for her turn to be examined, among about 30 pregnant women, and says: ‘When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. How will I reach the end of this road in peace, while the health situation in the Gaza Strip is gradually collapsing?’
Maysaa is pregnant with her first child. She got married only two months before the war, and since the first month she has been following up on her pregnancy at Al-Quds Hospital when it was like her family in Rafah, before the city was invaded on May 6, and moved to Mawasi Khan Yunis with all its staff and personnel.
She added: ‘Despite everything we are going through, the hospital staff are providing whatever help and services they can. They are giving us guidance and advice, and I see th
is as heroism in the face of the death we are living.’
The story of the field hospital began when Al-Quds Hospital in the city of Tal al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City, was subjected to an intense attack and a harsh siege that lasted for several weeks, during which medical and food supplies were cut off to prevent workers from providing essential services to the residents of the city and nearby areas.
At one point, the medical teams were forced to flee south, along with the patients and everyone who was sheltering in the hospital. The association’s management decided at that moment that services would continue by establishing an alternative field hospital wherever they settled.
In the outskirts of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, where almost half of the Strip’s population was crowded, the hospital was established and provided services to more than a million people who arrived in the city as displaced persons from the cities of Gaza and the north, after the occupation declared war on October 7th.
As t
he Israeli threats to invade the southern city, where the largest number of displaced people were concentrated, escalated, the hospital took a preemptive decision to move to the Mawasi area of ??Khan Yunis, which played a major role in ensuring the continuation of health services for approximately 450,000 people who were forcibly displaced from Rafah to that area.
The hospital’s medical director, Dr. Nafeth Al-Qarm, confirms that the staff receives between 500 and 600 patients daily, saying: ‘The hospital contains several important departments, including the emergency department, the minor surgeries department, and the ophthalmology department, which receives about 70 patients daily.’
The hospital has a special department for women and childbirth, which operates in two shifts and receives, according to Dr. Al-Qarm, between 50 and 70 cases per day, in addition to two overnight departments, a laboratory, and a pharmacy that dispenses medications free of charge.
In the ophthalmology department, Amjad Hassanei
n, a displaced person from eastern Gaza City, was also waiting his turn. He said: ‘Honestly, we thank God that the hospital made the decision to move immediately to Mawasi Khan Younis. If it weren’t for the foresight of its management and the proactive measures, we would be suffering here now in this area with no services.’
Hassanein talks about an allergy that affected his eye due to the heat he has been living in the tent for about a week, and he added: ‘It became very swollen and red, and I was no longer able to open it. The doctors told me that the heat was the cause, and it also seemed that it was exposed to a lot of dust and dirt. Today is my appointment for a check-up, and as you can see, my condition is very good.’
Despite the lack of some medicines and ointments for medical conditions in the Gaza Strip, due to the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, ‘doctors do not skimp on patients, even with home instructions, which contribute greatly to alleviating their pain,’ Hassanein adds.
The
steadfastness of Al-Quds Hospital and its insistence on continuing in light of the difficult circumstances experienced by the residents of the Gaza Strip embodies a different state of stability and rootedness on Palestinian land, proving that medicine in Gaza is not just a profession, and that medical points are not just facilities, but rather great titles for a great message, all of which serve the homeland.
Source: Maan News Agency