on mission in Gaza, a French gynecologist warns of the critical situation in maternity wards

With the destruction of the majority of hospitals and the difficulties in refugee camps, women are giving birth in extremely precarious sanitary conditions. An obstetrician-gynecologist on mission to Rafah testifies on franceinfo.

In Rafah, a refuge for 1.4 million Palestinians according to the UN, there is only one maternity hospital still standing. “We went from 20 deliveries to 80 deliveries and from four cesareans to between 20 and 30 cesareans per day” explain Zouhair Lahna, French obstetrician-gynecologist, on a humanitarian mission with the PalMed doctors’ association. He has been working in this Gaza maternity ward for three weeks.

“For example, I had a cesarean section for severe hypertension, at 32 weeks of pregnancy, so at 7 months of a multiple pregnancy, he describes. These are premature babies who are at risk of death, and a woman who was at risk of having complications. Not all of these patients are out of the woods because the number of infections is very high.”

Hygienic conditions are not ensured in the maternity ward because there is a lack of sterile equipment and beds. Women and their newborns can only stay 12 hours after birth to vacate rooms. But that is not enough, some have to give birth on the ground.

Hepatitis A is spreading

Doctors are forced to sort through patients according to Dr. Haya Hijazi, a gynecologist in Rafah. “Complications during pregnancies are exploding as well as hypertension due to stress and malnutrition of pregnant women, she explains. We can no longer manage all these complications. At the Emirati hospital where I work in Rafah, 500 women are currently waiting at reception in the emergency room. We only treat the most serious cases, women who bleed a lot.” After giving birth, women must return to the makeshift camps set up throughout Rafah with their newborns, who are still fragile and sensitive to diseases transmitted with the lack of hygiene.

Pediatrician Rajaa Okasha, interviewed by the press agency Reutersset up his office under one of his tents. “Children mainly suffer from intestinal problems, viral and respiratory infections due to the cold at night, he said. I see some who only wear one item of clothing on them. With their parents, they abandoned their home so quickly. They couldn’t take anything with them.”

“Hepatitis A is spreading due to the total lack of hygiene,” he adds. The pediatrician prescribes medications, even if he knows that the parents cannot afford them or cannot find them in pharmacies.