“Most people are concerned only: Drug deficiency leaves the wounded Gaza without relieving pain | Global Development
INasser Hospital in Gaza, Mahmoud* lies in a shot in the left leg. His knee crashed and the wound became injured. The boy wrinkle of pain, but doctors do not have pain relievers to relieve his suffering. He was given a nervous block, which prevents him from feeling anything, and relief allows him to sleep for a period of time. But as soon as he wears it, the torment returns.
more than 167,000 Palestinians were injured In Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. From burns and explosion wounds to the lost ends and broken bones, patients were immersed by patients with deep pain.
But a desperate drug deficiency means that there are few doctors that he can do to help. Treatment and operations should be performed without a suitable anesthesia, and what the pain relievers should be legalized.
According to the analysis of the Investigative Press Office (TBIG), more than half of the medical tasks of the World Health Organization in Gaza have been rejected since January 2024 – including delivery of medicines and fuel to hospitals, publishing employees and evacuating the patient – or delayed, compensated or canceled.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces bombed storage facilities and hospitals, while international caravans of medical supplies routinely registered from entering Gaza or facing weeks from delaying the border.
TBIG occurs to eight doctors in Gaza who described the extensive shortage of pain relief drugs including opioids, anesthesia and even paracetamol.
“Most of the injuries are amputation or open fractures,” says bone doctor Abdel -Aks Al -Azmi. This is very painful and requires 24 -hour pain relievers. [But now] We tell them: one injection per day … Use it at night so that you can sleep. “
In July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country will allow “minimum humanitarian supplies” to enter Gaza. However, relief agencies and doctors working in the region report an almost complete collapse of the medical supply chain.
“It is very clear that since March, we have spent months without allowing anything to enter,” says Dr. Randa Abu Rap of the World Health Organization office for occupied Palestinian territories. “It is not only the drug: it’s detector, diagnoses, and some tools or equipment.”
“Israel allows and facilitates the entry of medical equipment and medicines, taking into account pre -coordination. As evidence, in recent weeks alone, more than 3,500 tons of medical equipment has been transferred,” says the Israeli government coordinator for government activities in the regions (Cogat).
This is disputed by relief groups and doctors with severe deficiency. They say shipments are delayed for weeks or months on the border and requests are ignored.
Israel has never published a final official list of prohibited elements, but it is spreading the transfer lists to international agencies.
Tania Harry, director of the legal center, says that the shortage is exacerbated by the collapse of safe delivery systems inside Gaza.
In addition to restrictions [at the border]”The collapse in the overall ranking and looting has created barriers for access to aid, including expensive and sensitive elements such as medicines and medical equipment,” says Harry. The lack of availability can always be installed on entry and policy restrictions to reach politics. “
Travis Milin, a doctor in Gaza, says he is unable to understand the logical basis behind drug restrictions. “Opium is purely sympathetic, they have no purpose other than emotional care,” he says. “They do not help you live longer, and do not make you more likely to survive your injuries, and they have no death.”
Opium materials have become tightly immune. Doctors describe patients’ reduction to one injection per day, leaving the unrestricted pain for successive hours.
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In operating rooms, morphine, which is usually given as one sterile and so much sterile sole, is so limited that doctors must treat several people of the same bottle – a practice that carries the risk of infection.
Doctors say that many opioids are classified as essential drugs by the World Health Organization and their absence, leaving patients and medical teams without the most reliable tools for acute pain management and allowing surgeons to work.
Gaza’s doctors often depend on ketamine, which is anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects, calling it “the battlefield”.
“If someone comes with amputation, you will get IV and then a dose of ketamine. It lasts about 45 minutes,” Milin says. “But giving it one dose, with the workforce here, is not possible. And you cannot keep people [dosed with ketamine]. They cannot stand, they cannot wander, and they cannot interact. This is not a safe option either. “
When this is available, doctors carry a pre -filled syringes with a “collective victim”, when the bombing brings waves of patients, to pump small doses so that doctors can attend.
Patients often appear hallucinations or terrified. And wearing.
“Patients come to Er and may get or do not get a dose of ketamine. If they suffer from pain, but this is not a catastrophic injury, and they often do not get anything,” says Milin. “For a serious injury or a procedure such as inserting the chest tube, they are likely to be given the vitamin. But for something like a simple gunshot wound, most people are interested in it.”
The Israeli government spokesman said that the Israeli defense forces “will continue to work to facilitate medical care and the continuous employment of medical institutions in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with international relief organizations.”