Gaza ministry recounts toll taken by Israeli war on chronic disease patients

The ministry of heath in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a genocidal Israeli war for more than 14 months, recounts the toll being taken by the brutal military onslaught on chronic disease, cancer, and kidney failure patients.

Dr. Muneer Alboursh, the ministry’s director general, provided the account in a post on X, former Twitter, on Monday.

“More than 350,000 chronic disease patients, 12,500 cancer patients, and 1,100 kidney failure patients are suffering from a lack of treatment due to severe shortages of medications and the shutdown of hospitals as a result of the genocidal war waged by the Israeli occupation,” he said.

“The medication deficit has reached 80% for some chronic diseases, 60% for cancer drugs, and 64% for medical supplies,” the official noted, adding, “This acute shortage of medical resources endangers thousands of lives daily, leaving patients to face an uncertain fate.”

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Alboursh cited heart-wrenching remarks by a cancer and kidney failure patient from the coastal sliver, who had detailed the ordeal that had been caused for her and her family as a result of the war.

Identifying herself as Mrs. Asmahan, the patient said she had suffered kidney failure as a result of undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments, therefore, needing three dialysis sessions per week, a situation that has persisted since 2020.

The 57-year-old said her situation had worsened as a result of high blood pressure and a problem with one of her legs that had left her unable to walk.

She and her family had been forced to relocate across Gaza four times due to the war, each time having to travel a farther distance to the hospital and take further deadly risks brought up by the likelihood of Israeli attacks.

“Due to the pressure on hospitals, I now only receive two sessions weekly, each lasting two hours, which has worsened my health,” she said.

Asmahan said the symptoms of insufficient dialysis had started appearing in the form of facial swelling and a constant need for extended sleep.

“My suffering is compounded by the lack of appropriate food, reliance on canned goods, medication shortages, and the unavailability of certain drugs, especially for my chronic high blood pressure.”

The overall ordeal, she said, had caused her to lose a significant amount of weight, making her weigh just 48 kilograms.

Alboursh concluded the post by reminding that the daily suffering of such patients mandated international action to ensure protection of their lives and their right to medical treatment.

More than 45,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in the war that began after a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance movements on October 7, 2023 in response to the regime’s decades of deadly occupation and aggression against Palestinians.

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