BBC Middle East correspondent
BbcHealth care in the Gaza Strip is in itself a victim of 18 months of war between Israel and Hamas. Doctors who find it difficult to face, the BBC followed a GP through its quarter of work in a clinic Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
At 7:30 am, a slight silhouette in a pink scarf, Dr. Wissam Sukkar, getting a path in the devastated streets of Gaza City.
“I was walking for about 50 minutes to reach our clinic,” she explains when she is welcomed by a local BBC journalist who helped us record her day. With practically more fuel in Gaza, little taxis work.
“With our limited resources, we always try to be here in the north of Gaza through these difficult moments,” adds Dr. Sukkar.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) says that only 21 of the 36 Gaza hospitals are currently partially functional. Medical supplies are very low due to the current blocking of Gaza Israel.
The general practitioner underlines what remains of his former workplace, an MSF Burns clinic which was criticized in the first weeks of the war, during the street battles between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters.
His team has now converted an office west of Gaza City to the clinic – and at 9:30 am, while Dr. Sukkar puts his white dress, there are already 150 people waiting outside in a tent reception area.
“Most of our patients are displaced people,” said Dr. Sukkar. “They live in shelters, they even live in tents in the streets.”
Since a cease-fire collapsed a month ago, thousands of gasans have again left their homes and has fled to this neighborhood, looking for security.
With little food and clean water, there is an increase in malnutrition and diseases – from stomach insects to pebbles. The elderly and young people are the least affected and the first patients of the day are babies with viral infections.
“We receive many children who suffer from infections of the upper respiratory tract and diarrhea. In shelters, there are many children in the same place and a virus can spread very quickly,” said the doctor.
A toddler has his face dotted with mosquito bites and Dr. Sukkar administers a soothing cream. As the cooking gas has exhausted, families have taken the use of open fires to heat food, which also led to an increase in serious burns.
In less than an hour, Dr. Sukkar and three other doctors have seen dozens of patients. But there are many that they find it difficult to help.
“We have more and more challenges with the large number of patients with less and less medical supplies,” said Dr. Sukkar with weariness.
“In addition, we receive complex cases, and we do not know where to refer these patients because the health system in Gaza collapsed.”
There has been an influx in seriously injured patients arriving at the clinic since last Sunday, when Israeli war planes attacked the Arab hospital in Al-Ahli in Gaza City.
Israel accused Hamas of using a hospital building as “command and control center”; Something the armed group denied.
Al -Ahli – which was the main medical site for the treatment of trauma in northern Gaza – can no longer accept patients. WHO says that the emergency room, laboratory, X -ray machines and pharmacy have been destroyed.
“I started my treatment at the Al-Shifa hospital, then I was transferred to Al-Ahli and they bombed it,” said Saeed Barkat, an older man with a fractured thigh bone, who arrives at the MSF clinic on crutches.
He was operated on after being injured by an Israeli artillery fire on the refuge where he stayed at the end of last year. He has pins in his leg and she is swollen.
“I came here for any treatment and follow -up,” said Barkat, while nurses change to dress and give new pain relievers.
At noon, when Dr. Sukkar checks the little pharmacy from the clinic, she looks worried. Many shelves are naked.
Israel closed all the level crossings in Gaza in early March, saying that he put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages he holds. Since then, no help has entered.
“For diabetes, we have no insulin, we have no treatments for epilepsy, we have no basic drugs like anti-fire drugs,” said Dr. Sukkar.
“It is the season of skin infections and we do not have creams or ointments for bacterial infections, no drugs to treat the scabies and the head lice.”
Doctors ration the remaining supplies.
“We do our best so that this is not enough for the coming week,” sums up Dr. Sukkar, “but we expect our stock to run out of more or less two weeks.”
Soon, Dr. Sukkar is back in his consultation room. The patient rush continues with many more sick children. They have a cough, fevers and stomach upheavals.
At 3.30 p.m., it’s time to close the day clinic. The four doctors here calculate that they saw nearly 390 patients.
After a long, tiring day, there is the long tiring walk at home for Dr. Sukkar.
Leaving the clinic, she phoned her family. His thoughts turn to his own children, who have been moved with his nine times in the past and a half year.
“Like every Gazan, I have a daily struggle to guarantee clean water, food for my children,” said Dr. Sukkar. “We have no electricity, so it is really difficult to load the battery of my mobile.”
“Above all, it is really difficult to have hope,” she continues. “I feel that I live in a nightmare that does not end. When this war will end?”
For the moment, there is no answer and no respite.
