Oxfam warns about Gaza situation

Oxfam International said on Friday that the seven-month ongoing Israeli blockade is taking an ever-more severe toll on the health system in the Gaza Strip.

 

In a statement, Oxfam revealed that the one-off relaxation of the blockade this week to allow the delivery of fuel and some other humanitarian supplies, cannot meet the needs of 1.5 million Gazan population, especially the sick, injured and vulnerable.

 

Zionist regime fuel and electricity deliveries to Gaza had been reduced over the last couple of months. Even before the complete shutdown last weekend, clinics and hospitals in Gaza already largely relied on emergency generators due to frequent interruptions of electricity supply.

 

"Unstable electricity supply and lack of fuel for emergency generators disrupt the functioning of equipment for acute care services like incubators for newborns, heart monitors in intensive care, dialysis machines for kidney patients as well as for lights and crucial equipment and machinery used in surgery. Other critical services, like machinery in prenatal care and the simple necessity of heating in wards have been also been put at risk.

 

Oxfam pointed out that, in Shifa hospital in Gaza city, 135 cancer patients are currently unable to receive treatment due to the lack of basic medications.

 

According to WHO, 105 of a list of 460 essential medications are no longer in stock in Gazan pharmacies (12 January 2008). Since June 2007, 83 patients in need of urgent referral treatment outside Gaza have died, as a result of the closure of Rafah and since Israel did not approve or delayed their permit requests to cross Erez.