Khaberni - The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip has warned that the crisis of oil shortages and the necessary spare parts for operating electrical generators in hospitals threatens to halt the service and increases the complexities of the deteriorating health and humanitarian scene.
The ministry said in a statement today, Sunday, that the health system in the sector faces many challenges and complex crises imposed by the genocide war that targeted the infrastructure in many hospitals and primary care centers.
It added that these serious and catastrophic repercussions stand against the recovery efforts that the Ministry of Health began to restore health services and enhance care levels in the remaining operational hospitals, while the occupation continues to tighten its iron grip on any opportunity to bring life back to the destroyed vital sections, and to rehabilitate the infrastructure in hospitals and insists on keeping the health system in a state of continuous exhaustion, which makes it difficult to continue providing medical care.
It pointed out that the electrical generators were not spared from the direct targeting that affected 90 electrical generators that completely went out of service, while 38 generators operate with limited quantities of oil, and 11 generators need maintenance and spare parts to enable them to work.
The ministry confirmed that these generators are threatened with stopping because they have been operating above their maximum capacity and around the clock for more than two years, as engineering and technical teams make exceptional efforts to keep them working because they are considered the lifeline for hospitals.
It explained that stopping the generators is a direct threat to the vital departments and puts the lives of hundreds of patients in the "imminent danger circle", in addition to intensive care units and newborn incubators and dialysis departments that depend entirely on the stability of electricity.
The ministry added that the cooling interruption resulting from the stopping of generators threatens to spoil large quantities of sensitive drugs, vaccines, blood units, and stored medical derivatives in laboratories, and that this measure will necessarily lead to postponing scheduled surgical operations and limiting the work to very emergency cases, which exacerbates the waiting list and increases the suffering of patients.
The ministry warned of fluctuations in the arrival of electrical power or relying on unstable alternatives, because it leads to technical failures in expensive medical diagnostic and therapeutic devices that are difficult to compensate for or repair in light of the blockade, and also warned of the stopping of CT imaging services in Hamad Hospital.
The ministry appealed to all relevant humanitarian, rights, and health bodies for urgent intervention to ensure the provision of sufficient quantities of oils and spare parts.
