Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital is too close and too cold, putting premature babies at serious risk

GAZA, Nov 13 (Reuters) – The tiny babies lay side by side, some wrapped in green cloth and roughly taped to keep warm, some wearing only diapers, looking fragile, each passing moment minutes, their lives were in serious danger.

Newborns are being cared for by exhausted medical staff at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, which is surrounded by Israeli tanks fighting Hamas militants and lacks electricity, water, food, medicine and equipment.

“Yesterday I gave birth to 39 children and today they are 36 years old,” Dr. Mohamed Tabasha, director of pediatrics at Al Shifa, said in a telephone interview on Monday.

“I can’t say how long they will last. I could lose two more babies today or in an hour,” he said.

Premature infants, who weigh less than 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) each and sometimes only 700 or 800 grams, should be placed in an incubator where the temperature and humidity can be adjusted to their individual needs.

Tabatha said they had to move to regular beds over the weekend due to power shortages. They were placed side by side, surrounded by a pack of napkins, a cardboard box of sterile gauze and a plastic bag.

“Never in my life did I imagine that I would have 39 babies side by side in a bed, each with a different disease, and with a huge shortage of medical staff and milk,” Tabatha said.

He said the baby was too cold and his body temperature was unstable because of the power outage. In the absence of infection control measures, they spread the virus to each other and have no immunity.

He said there was no longer any way to sterilize their milk and bottled tea to the required standards. As a result, some people developed gastritis and experienced diarrhea and vomiting, which meant they were at risk of severe dehydration.

“You kill them slowly”

Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, who was also involved in caring for the baby, said the condition was fatal.

“Their situation is very bad and unless someone intervenes to adjust or improve their situation, you are slowly killing them,” he said by phone from Al Shifa.

“These are very critical cases and you have to deal with them with great sensitivity. You have to look after each of them in a very special way. At the moment they are all in the open and they are all together,” he said.

Tabatha listed everything needed to keep the baby safe: electricity to run the incubator, appropriate sterilizers for milk and bottled tea, medicines and support machines in case the baby develops respiratory failure.

He said the situation was traumatic for doctors and the four nurses responsible for the baby.

“We’re exhausted mentally and physically,” he said.

On October 7, Hamas militants broke into southern Israel and killed civilians. Israel then launched a military offensive to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization that controls the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli statistics, some 1,200 people died and 240 were taken hostage, making it the deadliest day in the country’s 75-year history.

Since then, Israel’s relentless attacks have killed thousands of Gazans and left more than half homeless. Gaza medical authorities say more than 11,000 people have been confirmed dead, about 40% of them children.

Israel says the plight of Shifa hospital, which sits atop a tunnel where Hamas militants have their headquarters, is to blame for their use of patients as human shields, a charge Hamas denies.

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