In a rare and welcome move, the World Health Organization says more than 100 patients, including children, who are suffering from severe trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be medically evacuated from Gaza Wednesday to countries where they can receive medical treatment for their condition.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have been requesting for repeatedly is a sustained medevac [medical evacuation] outside Gaza, an organized, sustained medevac,” Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said in a call Tuesday with journalists in Geneva.
Speaking in Gaza, Peeperkorn said that as many as 113 patients who are “on the Ministry of Health priority list” for medical evacuation will be gathered at the European Gaza hospital tonight “and from six in the morning — that is the plan — they will be brought to Kerem Shalom and then across Kerem Shalom to Ramallah airport.”
“The majority of the patients will go to the UAE,” he said “and then I think something like 13 patients will go to Romania. So, that is the plan for tomorrow.”
While affirming the importance of the operation, Peeperkorn noted the number of people being evacuated from war-torn Gaza paled in comparison to the needs.
“We estimate that approximately 12,000 to 14,000 critical patients need to be medevaced, half of them probably trauma-related — what we call serious trauma cases — amputations, spinal cord injuries, burns, etc., with the other half being chronic cases,” including cancer, cardiovascular, blood and liver diseases, he said.
Before the Rafah crossing in South Gaza near the Egyptian border was closed on May 6, nearly 5,000 patients were medevaced outside the Palestinian enclave. Since then, only 282 patients have been evacuated. The last WHO-led operation occurred on September 11 when 97 sick and severely injured patients and 155 companions were transported out of Gaza via Kerem Shalom for medical treatment.
“We cannot continue the way we do now. We need medical corridors,” Peeperkorn said. “The first medical corridors we have repeatedly requested to be restored is the traditional referral pathway from Gaza to East Jerusalem and the West Bank to the hospitals that are there already.
“And a second medical corridor to Egypt should be opened again, and maybe to Jordan, and from there when other countries are willing to receive patients, they can go to other areas,” he said.
While plans for transporting patients outside the Gaza Strip are moving ahead, a second round of polio vaccinations aimed at reaching more than a half million children under age 10 is winding down.
The World Health Organization says a second dose of novel oral polio vaccine has been administered to more than 450,000 children, and more than 364,000 children have received vitamin A in central and southern Gaza.
Unfortunately, a similar campaign “was compromised” in northern Gaza because of the dire conditions prevailing in the region.
Peeperkorn said the technical committee, which is the Ministry of Health, WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA, and NGO partners, decided to postpone the vaccination campaign from October 23 until November 2 “due to the lack of access, the lack of assured humanitarian pauses, the intense bombardment and the mass evacuation orders.”
“The committee decided to go ahead after the delay and to do our level best to cover as many kids as possible,” he said, noting that between November 2 and 4, the campaign managed to vaccinate 88% of the targeted 119,000 children under 10, and it provided nearly 84,000 children with vitamin A.
“This is an exceptional achievement,” he said, while acknowledging it will take weeks if not months “for us to know how successful this campaign has been.”
Peeperkorn participated in a mission that reached Kamal Adwan hospital Sunday, managing to deliver medical and surgical supplies, as well as other urgent necessities of fuel, food and water. The team also transferred 25 patients and 37 companions to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.
The WHO official presented an alarming picture of conditions in northern Gaza and the dangers encountered by medical staff and patients alike.
“There was intense bombardment in close proximity to the hospital even during the mission,” he said. “Shortly after the WHO mission to Kamal Adwan Hospital departed, the facility’s third floor reportedly was hit, injuring six children who are patients there. One child reportedly sustained a critical injury. Water tanks were damaged.”
He said, “The needs are enormous. The Emergency Department is full of patients, more than 40 casualties. The inpatient department also was full of hospitalized patients and their caregivers.”
Northern Gaza has three hospitals. Peeperkorn said the Indonesian Hospital is not functional and the other two, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals, are “only minimally functional. … There are no functional primary health care centers or medical points in North Gaza.”
While an estimated 150,000 people “were forcibly evacuated from the region,” he noted that an estimated population of 75,000 people remain.
Given the health situation in northern Gaza, he said, “It is critically vital that these hospitals remain functional.”
