(Jerusalem) Some surgical operations are carried out without completely putting patients to sleep in the Gaza Strip due to the shortage of anesthetic products, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned on Saturday.
“We lack narcotics, we lack sedatives, we lack opioids. We do a lot of operations with half doses of sedatives, which is terrible,” Léo Cans, MSF head of mission in Jerusalem responsible for the Palestinian territories, told AFP. “The person is not completely asleep when they should be. Sometimes for certain operations, it’s without anesthesia,” he said.
Mr. Cans recounted the operation this week on “a 10-year-old child, who had to amputate half of his left foot under semi-sedation, on the hospital floor in the corridor because all the operating theaters were full. »
“His mother was there, his sister was there. They watched the operation […] on the ground,” he said, referring to “photos and videos of patients who are unbearable” sent by MSF teams.
He also spoke of “a 12-year-old child burned on 60% of his body […] where we have to change the dressings.” “The doctors do this under paracetamol,” he explained, adding that it was “very hard to bear” for the healthcare workers forced to establish priorities based on the severity of the injuries.
“In terms of managing pain and suffering, it’s terrible,” he insisted, calling for an urgent end to the bombings and the sending of medical products.
Among the victims, “we receive far too many children and women, which leads us to say that there are indiscriminate bombings.”
The manager explained that he had limited contact with his teams from Jerusalem thanks to two satellite phones. “We are almost impossible to coordinate our activities following the total communications blackout in the Gaza Strip” since Friday evening, he said.
Furthermore, Mr. Cans insisted, the Israeli army’s call to evacuate the north to head to the south amounts to “asking caregivers to abandon their patients.”
In any case, “there is nowhere where we can be safe” and the strikes are also intense in the south, added the humanitarian official.
MSF has around 230 employees in the Gaza Strip. “Many have lost their homes”, “spend a good part of the day looking for water and food”, he said, sounding “the alarm on the potability of water”.