Treating the wounded, sick at a makeshift medical point

A boy injured in an Israeli attack receives medical treatment at a Red Crescent medical point in Rafah, southern Gaza, 5 February 2024.
Bashar Taleb APA images

On 23 January at around 5 pm, Israeli occupation forces began building a heavy fire belt around Nasser Medical Complex, marking the beginning of the siege on the only hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

I left the hospital immediately, not out of fear for my situation but because I was responsible for my siblings, as my father was not in the area where we were staying after being displaced from the north. I thought being with them would help ease their worries.

As expected, the hospital was surrounded from all directions, and arrests, bombings and destruction began. No person seeking treatment could reach the hospital, which was the only medical facility in Khan Younis for that and for transporting the wounded and martyrs. It became difficult to check on friends inside the hospital.

Medical station helps the wounded, sick

A medical station was established by the Palestine Red Crescent Society in al-Mawasi, on the coast west of Khan Younis, and I joined the team there. We provided first aid, and those wounded in the war or with critical illnesses were transferred to hospitals in Rafah. The journey took about an hour when it should have taken no more than 15 minutes due to the rough and crowded roads.

The medical station was the destination for displaced people and others seeking necessary treatment. Initially, we faced many difficulties due to a lack of resources and medical equipment. We were a team of paramedics, nurses and two doctors providing care for various war injuries and chronic diseases as well as for children, infants and pregnant women.

It was hard to deal with many of the cases, especially those needing continuous follow-up care. Wounds were frequently inflamed and sometimes festering.

I remember the case of a man with a gunshot wound that had left a large hole covering about two-thirds of one of his feet. In normal circumstances, a surgeon or vascular doctor would have treated him. But due to the siege and restrictions, I spent two hours cleaning his foot. I asked him to come for daily follow-ups and prescribed the necessary treatment.

He often asked whether his foot would heal, and I told him, “God willing.” After two months of follow-up treatments, the wound healed, and I was happy with his improvement and his joy at his foot’s recovery.

The patient traveled a long way to reach the Red Crescent point from the Deir al-Balah area to al-Mawasi because he indicated that he felt comfortable with and reassured by the treatment.

We had many cases to deal with while under great pressure and feeling extremely fatigued.

Treating pregnant women

When it came to pregnant women, it was essential to check to ensure that an expectant mother was really going into labor so that she wasn’t transferred unnecessarily from Khan Younis to Rafah.

However, I remember an emergency birth in which I helped a woman deliver her baby – successfully, thank God – in an ambulance because there wasn’t enough time to get her to the hospital.

Another case involved a woman with severe bleeding in her seventh month of pregnancy and the fetus was dead, making the situation more difficult, but we quickly handled it.

The medical team faced harsh challenges, and everything was difficult to bear. But what helped us continue were the team members’ cooperation and patience working in situations that exhausted our bodies and hearts.

I am no longer based at the medical station, which has transformed into a field hospital after Israel’s invasion of Rafah. I have since left Gaza to pursue specialization, though I continue to manage the cases of my patients.

As a newly graduated doctor, I bore and continue to bear a great responsibility, but this is the nature of Gaza’s people, who do not know the impossible and continue to fight in all directions.

Hadeel Albarrawi is a recently graduated doctor from Gaza.