Doctors struggling to treat Gaza's suffering wounded

Gaza City: Mohammad Abu Shabah, 22, lies in Al Wafa rehabilitation centre in northern Gaza, paralysed from the waist down after a missile fired by an Israeli drone on January 11 left pieces of shrapnel near his spine.

Doctors at the facility, Gaza's only rehabilitation centre, fear removing the shrapnel could lead to complete paralysis.

"I was just walking down the street," said Abu Shabah, recalling the incident that took place near his home in Rafah.

Some time afterwards he was sent to the Al Ma'dee military hospital in Cairo for emergency care.

His doctors say he needs a vasotrain machine to improve blood circulation to his limbs and a urodynamic machine to measure bladder capacity, but both are currently unavailable in Gaza.

"They were destroyed by Israeli tank fire on January 15," Tarek Dirdes, head of the male unit at the Al Wafa centre told Gulf News. "The machine's keyboard was hit by shrapnel, and there are no spare parts available."

Some 2,315 (about 43 per cent) of the injured were wounded by shrapnel, and spinal cord injuries are common, according to the health ministry.

Hospital staff said they were struggling to provide medical care with intermittent electricity supply and shortages of items such as wheelchairs and medication, as well as the more sophisticated equipment needed for patients with paralysis.

Thousands of wounded in Gaza, including 785 women and 1,815 children, will require long-term care, according to health ministry official Samir Radi.

Patients have begun trickling back into impoverished Gaza , according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the health ministry and people interviewed by Gulf News. WHO official Mahmoud Daher estimates that 470 patients are still receiving care abroad, but it is not clear how many of them were wounded in the war.

Salman Salama, 14, sustained a traumatic brain injury after his home in Beit Lahiya was hit by Israeli tank fire on January 14. Shrapnel in his skull caused bleeding in his brain. After lying in a coma in Al Shifa Hospital, he was taken to Egypt for neurosurgery.

Salman returned to Gaza last week, partially paralysed on his right side.

"We tried to run from the house when the tanks entered," said Salman from his hospital bed at Al Wafa centre.

Fifteen hospitals out of a total of 27, and 41 primary health care clinics out of 118 in Gaza were damaged during the war, according to the WHO, and about half of the ambulance fleet was damaged or destroyed.

During the 22-day Israeli offensive, access to health care was severely restricted. An estimated 40 per cent of the chronically ill were forced to interrupt their treatment.