Gaza- The crisis of the lack of blood units is a daily dilemma for the doctor Moataz Harra, head of the reception and emergency department in Al -Shifa Complex Medical, Gaza City.
And when the sounds of ambulances hear, he knows that he is on a date with a new wave of injured: dozens of cases reach one go, some of them are in critical condition, they bleed abundantly and immediately need blood units to save their lives.
In normal, doctors were giving the wounded 3 or 4 blood units immediately, while additional units of the blood bank arrived within minutes. Now, the situation is completely different.
Permanent
“We ask for 4 blood units to be wounded in his serious condition, so the blood bank comes to us with only one that is not enough, and we continue to wait for donors,” the doctor told Al -Jazeera Net.
Most of the injured people who reach its department come after air or artillery shelling on homes or tents crowded with displaced people, or on gatherings of citizens. In those critical moments, the medical team does not find enough blood to perform urgent surgical intervention or even to compensate for the initial bleeding.
“We live always anxiety, we fear that the arrival of blood will be delayed and that we will lose the patient in our hands only because a blood bag did not arrive at the appropriate time,” says Dr. Harra with a tone of regret.
Inside the Blood Bank in the same complex, Amani Abu Odeh, responsible for the laboratory department, is working on writing blood units, and has just reached a few donors. “For two years, we have been living in a continuous shortage of blood units. The current war has made it more disastrous, we are draining daily, as the number of wounded is constantly high and the number of donors in a sharp drop,” she says to Al -Jazeera Net.
The medical official explains the reason, and explains that it is due to “malnutrition, famine, people are afraid to donate blood because it does not have anything compensation, some are fainted while donating due to the lack of hemoglobin, and we have to turn it into the emergency department.”
A worsening crisis
Despite the daily appeals and the repeated calls of the Ministry of Health, the crisis is expanding, even the blood units that have recently arrived from West BankIt came in small quantities, not sufficient in front of the daily waves of the injured, especially in the mass massacres, and the official in the laboratory department adds.
“Sometimes we come up with massive injuries from a massacre and enough blood units are not available. We start contacts with other hospitals, and with the Blood Bank Association (civil),” she continues.
In the donation hall inside the blood bank, the citizen Abu Al -Qasim Al -Doual stretched over the seat for the withdrawal of blood to start the specialist with his work, and while the bag lying on the ground is slowly filled with blood, the young man says, “Every 3 months I donate, thank God the percentage of hemoglobin is high, my blood may save a wounded person. This is a national and human duty.”
But his compatriot Jamal Al -Dahdouh, who was waiting for his role in donating, acknowledged that he no longer plays this regularly as before Famine Which residents live Gaza Strip. “I was donating regularly before the war. Now, because of hunger, I cannot,” he said.
As for the third donor, Adham Abdel -Razzaq, he said in a faint voice, “Every day we see the news of dozens of injured people, this drives me to donate, our Lord appreciates us to do good, and we hope that this war will be in its last hours.”
Harsh
Inside the dialysis section of the same complex, the image is more severe, as patients cannot donate, and they do not find someone to donate to them, while dialysis sessions decreased from 3 sessions per week to two, and from 4 hours to two hours, amid power outages and water scarcity.
Mazouza Al -Khatib, 68, one of these, says in a tone of protest, “When I ask for a blood unit, they tell me: Bring a donor, and when I find one of his blood is weaker than my blood, where do we come from the donors? Everyone is hungry and weak.”
As for Zeenat Al -Emmaawi, 55, who did not say the conversation, her daughter speaks instead of her saying, “My mother is the hemoglobin, then there is no more than 8 (grams/dL) and the blood bank requests donors and we do not find her condition.
In another angle, Areej Al -Samouni, 30, is sitting with kidney failure for 6 years, and she says, “After every washing, my blood weakens greatly, I went to the blood bank, they said: Bring a donor, but all people have their blood weak, no one can donate” and seals with sadness “We do not know where to go, we want a solution because we die slowly.”
It was the doctor Muhammad Abu SalmaThe Director General of Al -Shifa Medical Complex has warned – in a press statement – of the seriousness of the blood units shortage crisis, and called for blood donation from outside the Gaza Strip.
He said on his Facebook account that what was spent for the wounded during the last June is 10 thousand blood units and its derivatives, of which 3,500 units arrived from the West Bank and “the rest was provided from the booked in Gaza,” adding that the people of the Strip “cannot donate blood due to famine and malnutrition.”