MSF begins emergency response in Gaza
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail China.org.cn, November 22, 2012
An emergency medical team made up of two Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff and a MSF program coordinator was able to enter the Gaza Strip on Nov. 18, according to a press release from the organization. Additional emergency response staff, such as anaesthetists, resuscitation specialists and surgeons, will be joining the team in the coming days.
In the days following the launch of MSF's Gaza operation, which the organization calls "Pillar of Defence", MSF donated medical supplies, including anaesthetics, surgical equipment, and medical kits for treating the wounded, reported to be in short supply to Gaza's central pharmacy. MSF will continue its donation of anaesthetic, disinfectant, dressings and gloves to ease supply shortages, the press statement said.
MSF's "inflatable hospital", originally set up in 2011 within Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, can be converted to function as a triage centre and an operating theatre for minor surgery. Prior to the recent violence, the hospital was being used for specialized surgery programs.
40 Palestinian staff are currently working for MSF in the Gaza Strip, including two nurses and two physiotherapists that are based at the MSF dispensary in Gaza town. However, only five patients have been able to get to the dispensary for treatment over the past six days because of security issues. MSF is planning to increase the dispensary's capacity so that it can care for patients who have been discharged from the hospital.
MSF is currently in the process of evaluating the situation in the hospitals of the Gaza Strip in order to determine what additional support is needed, the press release said. Given that Gaza's surgical teams are very experienced in war and emergency surgery, MSF is more likely to support intensive and postoperative care, the statement said.
"This new offensive is making an already very fragile humanitarian and public health situation much worse. MSF has been regularly denouncing the politicisation of the Palestinian health system and the impact of the double conflict – Israeli and Palestinian and between Palestinian groups – since 2006. The population is suffering from years of conflict, from a lack of access to certain kinds of healthcare and from shortages of medicines and other medical supplies," said Virginie Mathieu, MSF's head of mission for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
MSF, also known in the US as "Doctors Without Borders," has been working in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1989 and in the Gaza Strip since 2000. In July 2010, MSF signed an agreement with the public health authorities in Gaza and opened a reconstructive surgery programme. Several times a year, MSF teams of surgeons, operating theatre nurses and anaesthetists carry out specialist surgical programmes. These teams work in close collaboration with surgeons and other staff from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)