children born prematurely in Gaza are treated in an Egyptian hospital

Young Gazan mothers were able to go to Egypt where their prematurely born children are hospitalized due to lack of resources in the Gaza Strip.

Taking advantage of the truce at the end of November, Gazan mothers were finally able to go to Egypt so that their premature children could be taken care of. There are 24 of them in a hospital outside Cairo, receiving appropriate care. A relief for these women whose husbands were unable to leave the Gaza Strip.

Saoussane, 20 years old, still has a blank look. Seven months pregnant at the end of October, she gave birth to two girls, Rassil and Ratil, inside al-Chifa hospital, in the Gaza Strip: “The hospital was bombed. The martyrs were there, they died in front of me… My daughters’ condition was not stable. The doctors told me they were going to die on the road”she remembers.

Still frail, her daughters are now out of danger. For the moment, she is housed in this hospital in New, the Egyptian administrative capital, 50 km east of Cairo, far from her husband, who remains in the north of Gaza. “In reality, I would almost be ready to return to Gaza with my daughters to find my husband. But, at the same time, I am afraid. The situation is not stable and there are bombings 24 hours a day.”regrets the young mother.

Condition incompatible with hospitalization in Gaza

A few meters from her room, there is the room for very premature babies where Shaïma, 25, taps the window of the incubator. After a month of hospitalization, her baby is still under observation:“My daughter was born in the war. I gave birth and the doctors took her from me. I saw her after 38 days. I’m happy, but I can’t touch her. And her father, like the rest of the family, is not there.”

Doctor Ahmed Sahoula is in charge of this very premature unit. When the 24 infants arrived, they were suffering from brain hemorrhages, head trauma, breathing difficulties and inflammation of the intestines: “The condition in which the children arrived was not compatible with their hospitalization in Gaza. These were not normal conditions”he insists. These babies born under the bombings are safe for the moment and no one knows if they will ever see the Gaza Strip.