WHO Calls On Israel To Immediately Reverse Evacuation Orders.
By Ferdinand Olise
The World Health Organization (WHO), has strongly condemned Israel’s repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza.
According to a statement by the WHO, Saturday ,14th October, 2023, the forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe.
As the United Nation’s agency responsible for public health, the WHO warned that the lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance, further warning that those in intensive care, or those who rely on life support; patients undergoing hemodialysis, newborns in incubators, women with complications of pregnancy, and others face imminent deterioration of their condition, or death if they are forced to move, and cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated.
The WHO further stated that, forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity, and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.
Health facilities in the northern Gaza have continued to receive an influx of injured patients, and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. However, some patients are being treated in corridors, and outdoors in surrounding streets due to lack of hospital beds.
Meanwhile, hospital Directors, and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice of abandoning critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, or putting their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them.
Overwhelmingly, care givers have chosen to stay behind, and honour their oaths as health professionals to “do no harm,” rather than risk moving their critically ill patients during evacuations.
Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in the northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them from violence, as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. This also puts their lives at risk when health facilities are bombed.
There have been verified reports of deaths of health care workers, and the destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care. This is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.
The WHO therefore called on Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and also called for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians.
The UN Agency also reiterates its calls for the immediate, and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance including WHO health supplies that arrived earlier on 14 October, 2023, is currently awaiting entry.
