Gaza- At a modest wooden desk in a small room in the Nasser Medical Complex, psychiatrist Hoda Abu Nimr sits, listening to patients and patients destroyed by the war, and working hard to write treatment prescriptions using the few medications available.
This room on the first floor of the “Al-Yassin Building” in the Nasser Medical Complex has been transformed into a psychiatric clinic, crowded all the time, as it is the only one in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, which houses approximately one million and 200 thousand residents and those displaced there.
Dr. Hoda tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net that she receives many cases of patients every day, but not all of them are former visitors to psychiatric centers and clinics, but rather among them are new cases who have contracted diseases classified as psychological, linked to the repercussions of the fierce Israeli war that has been going on in the Gaza Strip for about a year.
War patients
War-related psychological illnesses are not limited to a specific class, gender, or age, as Dr. Hoda receives new patients suffering from psychological trauma, including young patients, many of whom went through harsh detention or severe torture, and left carrying physical and psychological illnesses. While women suffer from psychological illnesses that are due to loss, such as those who lost a husband, a son, or more, and there are those who lost their entire family.
In addition to these, Dr. Abu Nimr says that the clinic is visited by children suffering from bedwetting, nocturnal urination, anxiety, and an inability to sleep, due to the violent traumas they were exposed to and the horror of what they witnessed and experienced during the months of war, and the harsh experiences of displacement.
There are chronic medical conditions that have deteriorated and become worse due to the horrors of war, the collapse of the psychiatric system, and the unavailability of most medications for psychological illnesses, which causes them to have bouts of anger, and some of them pose a severe danger to themselves and others, which may reach the point of physical assault, according to the doctor.
As a result of the shortage of medications, this young doctor resorts to what she described as “alternative medications,” which are not necessarily from the family of medications for psychiatric illnesses, but rather an emergency measure to overcome the severity of the crisis of unavailability of most types of medications.
Shortage of medicines
While Dr. Hoda was speaking to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Ziad (a pseudonym) attended, who has been attending psychiatric clinics since 2007 as a result of the psychological trauma he suffered at the time, and has been suffering greatly since the outbreak of the war as a result of the lack of availability of the medications he has been accustomed to for years.
Of the 4 types of treatment that Ziad (57 years old) needs, Dr. Hoda gave him half the quantity of one type of medication. This patient told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, and he seemed aware of what he was saying and aware of his health condition, that this quantity is insufficient, and he fears a relapse if the war continues for a long time, and he is the one who His condition improved after years of treatment.
Ziad – a family head – was exposed to severe shocks during the war, as a result of the occupation’s destruction of his four-storey house in the small town of Abasan, which is about 800 meters away from the Israeli security fence east of the city of Khan Yunis. The value of what he lost as a result of this destruction is estimated at more than 300 thousand dollars. In addition to home furniture and all its contents.
Ziad went through the experience of displacement 12 times, starting from the first day of the outbreak of war on the 7th of last October, when he left his home, which had become a distant relic, and moved to several areas and his family was dispersed, and his married daughter was injured in the pelvic area as a result of shrapnel from a missile. An Israeli targeting of a shelter center.
In a second incident, scattered fragments of Israeli missiles caused the burning of tents for Ziad and his family in the city of Khan Yunis, causing the loss of all their contents and the loss of gold jewelry belonging to his engaged daughter.
With great awareness, this man says, “The continuation of this war poses a danger to the lives of all patients, especially psychiatric patients, and that the severe pressures resulting from killing and displacement will increase their numbers in the Gaza Strip, and the dangerous effects on the population will appear after the war stops.”
Targeting mental health
What Ziad said spontaneously is supported by the medical opinion of the Director General of Community Mental Health at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Khalil Shaqfa, as he confirmed in his speech to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the extent of the need for psychiatric clinics and centers is great as a result of this unprecedented war, the impact of which has affected all groups without exception.
Dr. Shaqfa believes that the occupation systematically and intentionally targeted the mental health of Gazans, in order to tamper with their psychological stability, by preventing psychiatric medications, the balance of which is almost zero, as this Israeli policy aims to increase tension, nervousness, and hostility in society.
Ministry of Health data indicate that between 40% and 60% of basic medicines are completely unavailable, including psychiatric medicines. Dr. Shaqfa explains that the list of basic psychiatric medicines is small, ranging between 40 to 50 items, while the total list for each Psychiatric medications are divided into 150 types, and he says, “We have not possessed more than 60 types of them at best since the tightening of the siege on the Gaza Strip in 2007.”
In addition to preventing the supply of medicines, Dr. Shaqfa demonstrates the systematic targeting of the psychiatric system in the Gaza Strip, with the death of 14 and the injury of other medical personnel, and the withdrawal of 6 mental health centers from service, which were providing services to hundreds of patients and patients daily through clinics and pharmacies to dispense medications.
In addition to the only “psychiatric hospital” in the sector designated for housing patients, at the outbreak of the war it was permanently housing 30 patients inside it, a number of whom were in the isolation ward due to the seriousness of their health condition. However, this hospital was directly targeted by a missile that hit one of its floors and was put out of service. .
In doing so, patients are now on the streets, and they pose – according to Dr. Shaqfa – a great danger to themselves and others in society, explaining that such patients may turn at any moment into “hostile personalities”, and in this case the patient will cause harm to himself or others, and may The war deprived them of medical follow-up and medications.
Dr. Shaqfa said that the fate of these patients is unknown, and we have received information about hostile incidents from a number of them inside tents and displacement centers. In addition, we constantly discover inside clinics cases that need treatment and perhaps hospitalization, and we cannot find places for them.
