Buckling Gaza Health Service Turns to Volunteers

Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
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Buckling Gaza Health Service Turns to Volunteers

Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)
Palestinians walk among the rubble of destroyed residential buildings following Israeli air strikes on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, in Gaza City, 30 October 2023. (EPA)

Gaza medical chiefs are turning to volunteers to help run an emergency service buckling under Israel's offensive as ambulances struggle to reach bomb sites past rubble-strewn roads and with ever-depleting supplies of fuel.

Medical and emergency staff have worked with little rest and are deploying in the most dangerous areas, witnessing the horror of violent death, terrible injuries and grief.

Gaza's health ministry has called on all trained paramedics to help staff hospitals and call-out teams, but though dozens have responded the system is still in dire need of more workers, it said.

"I have not gone home since the first day of the war. I shower here, sleep here and eat here," said Loay al-Astal, a volunteer emergency worker in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.

Health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave say Israeli air and artillery strikes have killed more than 8,000 people since Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters rampaged through security barriers to kill more than 1,400 Israelis and take more than 200 hostage.

After Israel began ground operations on Friday, many Gaza residents fear the destruction will intensify.

Israel has ordered civilians to leave the northern half of the Gaza Strip for the south, but has continued an intense bombardment across the enclave and many people are refusing to leave.

Shelling on Gaza's main north-south road on Monday meant the enclave was all but cut in two, with any attempts to flee south risking bombardment.

The health ministry said 116 medical staff had been killed in the bombardment since Oct. 7, along with 18 civil emergency department rescuers.

Astal, the volunteer who had trained at university to be a paramedic but was unemployed when the war began, described an incident in which some of his colleagues had nearly been killed by an air strike that blew out the windows of their ambulance.

"The glass was smashed and some of our volunteers were wounded," he said.

He is haunted by the memory of trying to save a woman who was buried up to her neck in rubble from an air strike. "There was a cut on her head and I rushed to treat the wound," Astal, 33, said.

She asked him to free her from the rubble so she could find her son, but she died minutes later, still trapped, he said. "I felt bad I couldn't save her," he said.

'Where should we go?'

The head of the Khan Younis ambulance service, Naseem Hassan, said the department was overwhelmed and needed trained medics. "We opened the door for volunteers and many young people answered that call and have been on duty since the war began," he said.

Along with the bombardment, Israel has imposed a blockade on the enclave, home to 2.3 million people, cutting supplies of electricity and fuel. Limited food and medical aid deliveries have entered Gaza since last week after international pressure on Israel.

"Ambulances are about to go out of operation because we have very limited fuel left. We have problems with communications. We lose touch with the ambulances that leave here," said volunteer driver Sari al-Najjar.

Phone and internet services in Gaza were cut off for nearly two days over the weekend as Israeli tanks started moving into the enclave. Communications gradually started returning from Sunday.

Without reliable power supplies, many residents were unable to charge phones, adding to the difficulties for ambulance crews trying to locate and coordinate rescues.

Thousands of people have gathered at hospitals in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, many sheltering in makeshift tents hoping for some safety from the bombardment.

Medical officials said air strikes in the vicinity of the major Gaza City hospitals including al-Shifa, al-Quds and the Turkish Friendship hospital, have caused damage.

Israel has accused Hamas of placing command centers and weaponry near hospitals, which the group denies.

"Where should we go? It is all one death," said Hatem Sultan, sheltering near al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave's biggest medical center, where ambulances were constantly arriving with people injured in air strikes.



Doctor at the Heart of Türkiye Newborn Baby Deaths Case Says He was a 'Trusted' Physician

A doctor takes the footprint of a newborn baby for his birth certificate at a private clinic in Ankara, October 16, 2011. The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, according to projections by the United Nations. Picture taken October 16, 2011. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (Türkiye - Tags: SOCIETY HEALTH)
A doctor takes the footprint of a newborn baby for his birth certificate at a private clinic in Ankara, October 16, 2011. The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, according to projections by the United Nations. Picture taken October 16, 2011. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (Türkiye - Tags: SOCIETY HEALTH)
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Doctor at the Heart of Türkiye Newborn Baby Deaths Case Says He was a 'Trusted' Physician

A doctor takes the footprint of a newborn baby for his birth certificate at a private clinic in Ankara, October 16, 2011. The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, according to projections by the United Nations. Picture taken October 16, 2011. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (Türkiye - Tags: SOCIETY HEALTH)
A doctor takes the footprint of a newborn baby for his birth certificate at a private clinic in Ankara, October 16, 2011. The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, according to projections by the United Nations. Picture taken October 16, 2011. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (Türkiye - Tags: SOCIETY HEALTH)

The Turkish doctor at the center of an alleged fraud scheme that led to the deaths of 10 babies told an Istanbul court Saturday that he was a “trusted” physician.

Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals, where they were allegedly kept for prolonged and sometimes unnecessary treatments in order to receive social security payments.

“Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said, referring to Türkiye's emergency medical phone line.

Sari, said to be the plot’s ringleader, operated the neonatal intensive care units of several private hospitals in Istanbul. He is facing a sentence of up to 583 years in prison in a case where doctors, nurses, hospital managers and other health staff are accused of putting financial gain before newborns’ wellbeing, The AP reported.

The case, which emerged last month, has sparked public outrage and calls for greater oversight of the health care system. Authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed 10 of the 19 hospitals that were implicated in the scandal.

“I want to tell everything so that the events can be revealed,” Sari, the owner of Medisense Health Services, told the court. “I love my profession very much. I love being a doctor very much.”

Although the defendants are charged with the negligent homicide of 10 infants since January 2023, an investigative report cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency said they caused the deaths of “hundreds” of babies over a much longer time period.

Over 350 families have petitioned prosecutors or other state institutions seeking investigations into the deaths of their children, according to state media.

Prosecutors at the trial, which opened on Monday, say the defendants also falsified reports to make the babies’ condition appear more serious so as to obtain more money from the state as well as from families.

The main defendants have denied any wrongdoing, insisting they made the best possible decisions and are now facing punishment for unavoidable, unwanted outcomes.

Sari is charged with establishing an organization with the aim of committing a crime, defrauding public institutions, forgery of official documents and homicide by negligence.

During questioning by prosecutors before the trial, Sari denied accusations that the babies were not given the proper care, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his employees were not appropriately qualified, according to a 1,400-page indictment.

“Everything is in accordance with procedures,” he told prosecutors in a statement.

The hearings at Bakirkoy courthouse, on Istanbul’s European side, have seen protests outside calling for private hospitals to be shut down and “baby killers” to be held accountable.

The case has also led to calls for the resignation of Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu, who was the Istanbul provincial health director at the time some of the deaths occurred. Ozgur Ozel, the main opposition party leader, has called for all hospitals involved to be nationalized.

In a Saturday interview with the A Haber TV channel, Memisoglu characterized the defendants as “bad apples” who had been “weeded out.”

“Our health system is one of the best health systems in the world,” he said. “This is a very exceptional, very organized criminal organization. It is a mistake to evaluate this in the health system as a whole.”

Memisoglu also denied the claim that he shut down an investigation into the claims in 2016, when he was Istanbul’s health director, calling it “a lie and slander.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished but warned against placing all the blame on the country’s health care system.

“We will not allow our health care community to be battered because of a few rotten apples,” he said.