Feature: Kidney patients in Gaza struggle to get treatment as health system gutted by war
GAZA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- On a rusty hospital bed in Gaza City, Issa Abu Laban was enduring a shortened dialysis session with outdated machines and dwindling medication.
"My body can't clear its toxins," the 53-year-old said. "I feel death surrounding me."
Abu Laban is one of hundreds of kidney patients in Gaza now facing life-threatening complications. Gaza's fragile health system -- already weakened by years of blockade -- has been pushed to the brink since the conflict erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Hospitals are overwhelmed, with staff being exhausted and essential supplies critically scarce.
The crisis has deepened after humanitarian aid and medicine were prevented from entering the enclave on March 2, when the first phase of a ceasefire expired. Two weeks later, on March 18, renewed Israeli military operations triggered fresh mass displacement, putting further strain on the few hospitals still functioning.
"Because of the Israeli blockade and war, none of the food, water, or other humanitarian aid is entering Gaza," Abu Mohammed Ajour, a 62-year-old kidney patient, told Xinhua.
Now living in a temporary shelter, Ajour often goes without clean drinking water.
"Bottled water is so expensive. I cannot afford it," he said. "But without clean water, my condition gets worse. It is not just the war that is killing us. It is thirst, poverty, and neglect," he said.
Children are especially vulnerable in this health crisis.
Seven-year-old Yousef al-Rantisi, pale and visibly exhausted, clutched a soft toy as he was undergoing dialysis. "I feel weak and cold. I just want the pain to stop," he whispered.
Al-Rantisi's family, displaced from northern Gaza, now lives in a shelter in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City. With limited income, accessing hospital care is a weekly ordeal.
"Transportation costs 30 U.S. dollars, which we couldn't afford," his father, Mahmoud al-Rantisi, told Xinhua. "Sometimes I carry him in a wheelchair and walk for two hours to get here. But there are days when we cannot make it, and his condition worsens."
"For all renal patients, survival has become a daily calculation between food, water, and medicine, something always has to be sacrificed. And with each passing day, the choices grow more impossible," Ghazi al-Yazji, a local nephrologist at Al-Shifa Hospital, told Xinhua.
Munir Al-Bursh, director general of the health authorities in Gaza, warned that the lives of dozens of patients are under threat due to a severe lack of dialysis machines and critical medical supplies.
"The health disaster facing kidney patients is worsening daily," he said. "The continued blockade and ban on the entry of life-saving medications have severely impacted both regular and chronic kidney patients."
Abdullah al-Qishawi, head of the Department of Nephrology at Al-Shifa Hospital, said about 1,100 patients with kidney disease received dialysis treatment before the conflict. Out of them, around 416 have died since the outbreak of the war, mainly due to a lack of proper treatment.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
13 hours ago
- The Star
New York moves to allow terminally ill people to die on their own terms
NEW YORK, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The New York State Senate approved a bill on Monday that would allow people facing terminal diagnoses to end their lives on their own terms, which the bill's proponents say would grant a measure of autonomy to New Yorkers in their final days. The bill, which passed the State Assembly earlier this year, will now head to the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, for her signature. "It is unclear whether she plans to sign it; a spokesman for her office said she would review it," reported The New York Times. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have passed laws permitting so-called medical aid in dying. The practice is also available in several European countries and in Canada, which recently broadened its criteria to extend the option to people with incurable chronic illnesses and disabilities. According to the report, the bill in New York is written more narrowly and would apply only to people who have an incurable and irreversible illness, with six months or less to live. Proponents say that distinction is key.
The Star
13 hours ago
- The Star
COVID-19 virus protein triggers immune attack on healthy cells: study
JERUSALEM, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Israeli researchers have discovered that a protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for COVID-19, can cause the immune system to attack healthy cells mistakenly, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said in a statement on Tuesday. The study, published in Cell Reports, sheds light on how severe COVID-19 complications may occur and suggests new ways to prevent immune-driven damage from the virus. The researchers found that the virus's nucleocapsid protein (NP), which normally helps package the virus's genetic material inside infected cells, can spread to nearby uninfected epithelial cells. Once on the surface of these healthy cells, NP would be mistakenly identified by the immune system as a threat. The immune system then deploys anti-NP antibodies, which mark these uninfected cells for destruction. The process triggers the classical complement pathway, a part of the immune response that leads to inflammation and tissue damage, contributing to severe COVID-19 symptoms and possibly long COVID. Using lab-grown cells, advanced imaging, and samples from COVID-19 patients, the researchers found that NP binds to a type of molecule on cell surfaces. The binding causes the protein to cluster on healthy cells, further confusing the immune system. The study also found that the drug enoxaparin, a common blood thinner and heparin analog, blocks NP from sticking to healthy cells. In both lab tests and patient samples, enoxaparin helped prevent immune attacks by occupying the binding sites that NP uses. According to the researchers, the discovery may offer new hope for reducing immune-related complications in COVID-19 and potentially other viral infections.
Barnama
2 days ago
- Barnama
Gaza's Healthcare System On Verge Of Total Collapse
GENEVA, June 9 (Bernama-QNA) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the healthcare system in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse, as part of the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli occupation against Palestinians in the Strip for more than a year and a half, Qatar News Agency reported. In a statement on Sunday, the ICRC said that most of the injured Palestinians were trying to reach aid distribution centre. The ICRC noted that the past few days have witnessed an escalation in hostilities around the few remaining hospitals still operating in Gaza, while calling for the preservation of the remaining healthcare facilities in the Strip to avoid further loss of life.
