The newborns are being cared for by exhausted medical staff at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, where Israeli tanks are battling Hamas militants. And the hospital is running low on electricity, water, food, medicine and equipment.
“Yesterday there were 39 babies here, but today there are only 36... I can’t say how long they will survive. I could lose two more today or in an hour,” Dr. Mohamed Tabasha, head of pediatrics at Al-Shifa, said on Monday.
A newborn baby is taken out of an incubator due to a power outage at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 12, 2023. Photo: Reuters
Premature babies, weighing less than 1.5 kg each and in some cases as little as 700 or 800 grams, should be kept in an incubator where temperature and humidity can be adjusted to the baby's individual needs.
But the babies had to be moved to regular beds on weekends because of a power outage, Tabasha said. They were placed side by side, surrounded by packs of diapers, cardboard boxes of sterile gauze and plastic bags.
“Never in my life did I expect to find myself with 39 babies lying side by side in a bed, each suffering from a different illness, and with such a severe shortage of medical staff and milk,” Tabasha said.
The babies were too cold and their temperatures were unstable due to the power outage. In the absence of infection control measures, they were transmitting the virus to each other and had no immunity, he said.
He said there was no way to sterilize milk and teats to the required standards. As a result, some children developed gastroenteritis, diarrhea and vomiting, which meant they were at risk of acute dehydration.
Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, who also cared for the babies, described the condition as life-threatening. "These are very serious cases, you have to be very sensitive when dealing with them. You have to treat each case very specifically," he said.
Tabasha listed everything he needed to keep the babies safe: electricity to run the incubator, proper sterilizers for milk and pacifiers, medicine and support machines in case any of them suffered respiratory failure.
He said the situation was difficult for the doctors and four nurses in charge of the babies. “We were emotionally and physically exhausted,” he said.
Since the Israel-Hamas conflict began, more than half of Gaza's population has been left homeless by the relentless fighting. Gaza's health authorities say more than 11,000 people have been confirmed dead, about 40% of them children.
Israel says the Al-Shifa hospital sits above tunnels that served as headquarters for Hamas militants, who were responsible for using patients as human shields, something Hamas denies.
Mai Van (according to Reuters)
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