Gaza- The Director General of the Engineering and Maintenance Department at the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Engineer Alaa Abu Odeh, confirmed that a few days separate us from the occurrence of a catastrophe with the complete collapse and final collapse of the health system in Gaza, as hospitals begin to stop and go out of service successively with the stopping of electrical generators.
Abu Odeh said, in an exclusive interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, that the occupation completely prevents the entry of electric generators, spare parts, oils, and other maintenance supplies for the Ministry of Health.
This official fears that the occupation will escalate the systematic assassinations of the health and technical teams that drive the health system, which the occupation is inciting in its media as the last manifestations of the government and order in the sector.
He confirmed that the health teams were directly targeted, as happened last week when 5 employees of the Ministry were killed, and the Director-General of Pharmacy and Medical Equipment at the Ministry was seriously injured during a humanitarian work mission in a pharmaceutical warehouse north of the city of Rafah, the coordinates of which were known to the World Health Organization and international bodies.
Below is the text of the dialogue:
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The Ministry of Health warned of the danger of generators stopping in hospitals. What is the truth about this?
Generators in government hospitals have been working non-stop since the outbreak of the Israeli war about a year ago, under very difficult operating conditions, double loads, and the absence of spare parts, oils, and filters. Since 2020, the Israeli occupation has prevented the entry of any spare parts, oils, and generator operating supplies, and increased its restrictions after the outbreak of war.
In the previous period, we were working on available alternatives available in the local market, and trying to reclaim what could be recovered spare parts for old generators that were broken down or damaged as a result of the bombing and were out of service, but we have now reached the stage of extreme danger due to the exhaustion of these alternatives, and we no longer have any options. It can be used to perform periodic or preventive maintenance of generators.
We no longer have any spare parts to perform emergency maintenance on generators. For example, we are in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, and after it was invaded by the occupation (during the ground operation that lasted 4 months from December until last April), 5 generators were out of service. There is electricity inside this complex as a result of military operations, and we were barely able to restart one of them, while 4 of them were stopped and out of service. After fleeing from the city of Rafah, we brought the generators from the Emirates Crescent Hospital and used them to restart the Nasser Complex.
We confirm here that the hospitals that went out of service in Rafah will not be able to return to work again due to the lack of generators in them, which we used to restart important health facilities, such as the Nasser Complex, which is the largest in the southern regions of the Strip.
To further diagnose the deteriorating reality in this complex, it operates on 3 generators, one of which covers the entire operational load for 12 hours a day, the second covers 60% of the load and works during the second half of the day and we are forced to stop 40% of the services and reduce the loads, and the third we call a generator. It saves lives and only works during emergencies to cover sensitive services such as intensive care and operations.
The crisis facing us currently is that all of these generators will stop working because the Ministry’s stores today have zero stock of oils, filters, and spare parts, and they are also not available in the local market. During the past months, we have been using inappropriate oils, including car oils, in order to continue the work of the generators. Because the occupation prevents oils for hospital generators from entering the Gaza Strip, and even oils for ambulances and transportation in the Ministry of Health have become zero.
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What about Al-Aqsa and European Martyrs Hospitals?
In Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah, which is the only governmental hospital serving residents and displaced people in the central region of the Gaza Strip, one of its two main generators stopped serving as a result of a major mechanical failure resulting from continuous work, and we were unable to repair it due to the lack of spare parts, despite The Ministry purchased these parts from Jordan and we tried to coordinate with the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Royal Jordanian Commission, and the Jordanian Military Hospital. The occupation still categorically refuses to bring in any spare parts.
We tried to buy alternative generators, and a number of them are available in the port of Ashdod (Israeli) from one of the companies, but the occupation refuses to bring in any generator belonging to the Ministry of Health hospitals in Gaza, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is currently operating with one generator that does not meet the needs of 40% of the hospital’s operational capacity.
I confirm that the situation is extremely catastrophic, and even if spare parts and other supplies entered, these generators were exhausted as a result of continuous work throughout the months of war, and we have indications that the main generator that has been operating the Nasser complex since 2014 may go out of service at any moment.
The situation in the European Hospital is no different than that of Nasser and Al-Aqsa Martyrs. During the evacuation (last July) we lost one of the main generators, and now it operates with two generators on an exchange system, and they are subject to stopping at any moment for the same reasons related to oils, filters, and spare parts.
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Is the situation different in the north of the Gaza Strip than in the south?
The situation in the north is more disastrous and dangerous. When the occupation invaded the Al-Shifa Medical Complex (the largest in the Strip) in Gaza City, it destroyed and bulldozed the main power station with all its facilities, components and all generators. The same was true of the “Al-Nasr Children’s Complex”, which includes Al-Rantisi Hospital and its surrounding hospitals, where they were destroyed. Bomb the main station and destroy all generators.
In the Indonesian Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia, which is currently the only government hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the occupation bombed all the generators. The hospital is currently operating with two small generators that are only sufficient for lighting, and it cannot operate 70% of the services.
As private hospitals that operate partially in Gaza City, there are the Baptist Hospital, the Patient’s Friends Hospital, and Al Awda Hospital in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, all of which face the same challenges and operating conditions as government hospitals, and are threatened with stopping at any moment.
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When do you expect this collapse to occur?
Hospitals will fall one by one, depending on the ability of each hospital’s generators to continue and according to its operational conditions and technical condition, and within a week we will face a catastrophic situation starting with the Nasser Complex, then the Al-Aqsa Martyrs, then the European.
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What does stopping these generators mean for patients?
Electricity is the basis of hospital infrastructure, and without it, they will not be able to operate any medical service, and there will be no health system. The cessation of generators means a lack of life inside hospitals, and thus a death sentence for the entire health system and hundreds of patients and wounded.
You can imagine the impact of the collapse of the health system on the lives of 1,200,000 residents and displaced people in Khan Yunis, and about 800,000 in the central region, while the Indonesian hospital serves about 250,000 in Gaza and the north.
The occupation deliberately put the main warehouses of the Ministry of Health out of service since the first day of the war, the largest of which is the main warehouse in the Al-Mughraqa area south of Gaza City (currently within the Netzarim axis), which contains the ministry’s stock of oils, spare parts and other supplies that help it withstand, and bombed it with air and artillery strikes. Violent because he realizes that these stores are the beating heart of the health system.
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What about the fuel crisis? What is your current fuel supply? How much is enough for you?
We definitely do not have a fuel reserve, and quantities of fuel are supplied to hospitals under the supervision of technical committees from international monitoring bodies, which monitor fuel consumption daily, and the supply is only made when the hospital is on the verge of collapse, leaving it in a constant state of need.
The same is true for hospitals in the north, and sometimes we are forced to operate only one department, while the rest of the hospital is immersed in complete darkness due to the lack of fuel as a result of severe Israeli restrictions.
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In light of this reality, how were you able to withstand nearly a year of continuous war?
With engineering and scientific calculations, we collapsed 6 months ago, and it is assumed that the health system collapsed and went out of service since then, but with God’s knowledge and divine measures, we are still working. In order to continue for as long as possible, we resorted to alternatives, reducing services, and working to the minimum, but currently I confirm that we are in a stage of clinical death and the health system is completely collapsed.
By scientific and engineering standards, a week from now we will begin the complete collapse and final collapse, and the health system will fall sequentially. I imagine that after a month, if the war continues and our needs are not met, there will be no health system in the Gaza Strip.
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What about private and field hospitals?
These hospitals support government public hospitals by providing some primary medical services, and they cannot compensate for the absence or collapse of the official health system.
For example, all field hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip do not have a CT scan service, which is the most important diagnostic device in war situations.
There are no intensive care rooms except in a very limited number, while we have 48 intensive care beds in the Nasser complex, 52 beds in the European one, and about 20 beds in Al-Aqsa Martyrs, and the field hospitals cannot compensate for this number of intensive care beds, and also there are none in These hospitals are oxygen stations, and are supplied with oxygen from government stations, and there is no field hospital with central sterilization services and orthopedic operations.