Seventy pct of wounded Gazans amputees - QRCS

[DogPoundPup]

DOHA, Jan 24 (KUNA) -- The medical team sent by Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) to Gaza Strip on the heels of the Israeli offensive revealed that 70 percent of the wounded people lost one of more limbs.
Briefing reporters on the QRCS mission upon return from Gaza on Saturday, Dr. Saad Abu-Hasana said the team inspected most of the victims of the brutal Israeli aggression.
"Almost 70 percent of the injured people lost one or more limbs. Many of the victims of the 23-day aggression are children and women," Abu-Hasana affirmed.
The Israeli forces used internationally-banned weapons which cause serious burns and skin and muscle defamations, he said, noting that it was the first time for him to see such burns.
Abu-Hasana asserted that the Israeli aggression resulted in horrific tragedies on a large-scale.
"Most of the injured people had to undergo surgeries on the ground due to the lack of vacant beds," he disclosed.
He extolled the Palestinian physicians for "the excellent job" they had done during the ordeal of Gaza.
For his part, QRCS CEO Khaled Bin-Ghanem Al-Ali said his organization scaled up its efforts to rehabilitate the embattled healthcare sector of Gaza Strip.
"The society is supplying the health facilities in Gaza with medical equipment and personnel training.
"It is developing rehabilitation plans for the medical infrastructure in Gaza Strip on the short, medium and long, -terms," Al-Ali pointed out.
QRCS has recently announced setting aside USD 800,000 to the rehabilitation of Al-Quds Hospital.
It has also sent medical assistances amounting in value to QR 12 million to Gaza Artificial Limb Center which is currently accommodating some 800 amputees.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1970988&Language=en

[GoesTo11]

1. Seventy percent of I/P threads posted by DogPoundPup

Maybe you should just have one big thread with links to news items.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Early on BeMildred was posting a plethora of articles, but limited them to a few threads

worked very well

[bemildred]

7. It's "Bemildred" Sir, a pun on "bewildered".

My avatar is a picture of the source of the username.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Scurrilous]

2. Doctors: Many Palestinians in Gaza hospitals in danger of dying from their wounds

<snip>

"A large number of Palestinians listed in serious condition in Gaza hospitals are in danger of dying from their wounds, a group of 12 Arab-Israeli doctors said Friday.

The doctors were sent by the organization "Doctors for Human Rights" and are scheduled to return to Israel on Sunday.

Dr. Agbariah, the manager of a hospital in the Arab-Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm, said Friday, "Each hospital is full of wounded. There are wounded in serious condition and the treatment they are given is very basic because of the lack of medical supplies."

Dr. Agbariah added that the hospitals are not set up "to receive so many patients at the same time," adding that the high concentration will lead to fatalities.

The doctor added that the situation is worsened by the lack of reliable electricity and the high level of poverty in the strip, with trash and the carcasses of dead animals strewn about in many areas, which pose a contamination risk."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058230.html

[madrchsod]

3. gaza has turned into modern version of dante`s hell

[Scurrilous]

4. Embedded with Gaza medics

"Link to a video report broadcasted on January 20th, 2009 in France 24 TV. The reporter, Radjaa Abou Dagga, followed a team of Palestinian medics during the Israeli assault."

Viewer discretion advised (GRAPHIC).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVHai01Toag

[Scurrilous]

8. With crossings still closed, limited capacity to repair hospitals

<snip>

"Al Quds Hospital is waiting for its wounds to heal after being heavily attacked by Israeli forces in the last days of the Israeli operation.

Hit by shells, the damage is massive. Windows were shattered, the surgical ward gone, the administration and pharmaceutical buildings destroyed. When Israeli forces opened fire on the hospital it caught fire and 500 patients, refugees and staff were evacuated.

Dr. Walid Abu Ramadan, Medical Director of Al Quds Hospital for the Palestinian Red Crescent, said that missiles rained on patients during the worst night of shelling.

“We were beyond capacity with people seeking shelter and the sick and wounded. The humanitarian situation was so difficult and still is by any standards.”

Dr. Abu Ramadan told PNN on Thursday that the worst was trying to evacuate the children and premature infants.

Medical staff functioned on no sleep, as did most of the Gaza Strip, for more than three weeks. “We are trying to re-open parts of the hospital because all of the hospitals are experiencing large crowds. Thousands of people were wounded.”

Red Cross spokesperson in Gaza, Iyad Nasser, told PNN today that the recent Israeli military operation was a “strike to the entire infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. The results were terrible on the humanitarian level after we had already been under the long siege.”

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[shira]

9. Gazans stay away from Israeli clinic

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1232292919802

There's no question that Israel is better equipped and staffed to help Palestinians than Gazan hospitals. More people could live and more could probably keep their limbs.

Hamas would rather have a higher casualty count than send them to Israel for better care. That's seriously f-ked up. And many let them get away with this.

It's disgusting and very sad.

[Scurrilous]

10. US doctors face challenges in crippled Gaza

<snip>

"Doctors from the United States who rushed to the Gaza Strip to help the war wounded quickly learned that their challenge went beyond treating shrapnel injuries.

The eight American specialists found themselves operating on patients who had fallen victim to the 20-month-border closure that had crippled Gaza's health care system even before Israel's offensive against Hamas.

On Tuesday, the team removed a kidney tumor the size of a honey melon from a 4-year-old boy, Abdullah Shawwa, in a five-hour emergency surgery at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital.

The tumor was advanced and without quick intervention Abdullah would likely have died, said Dr. Ismail Mehr, an anesthesiologist from Hornell, N.Y. Doctors in Gaza didn't have the expertise to operate on him and Abdullah's father had been unable to get him transferred quickly to Israel or Egypt.

Even after the surgery, Abdullah's prognosis is uncertain. He'll need followup treatment, including advanced chemotherapy or radiation, which are not available in Gaza. But it's been difficult for Gaza patients to get out, ever since Israel and Egypt closed the borders in response to the violent Hamas takeover of the territory in June 2007.

The closure also dealt a further blow to Gaza's underdeveloped health care system, which lacks sophisticated equipment and key specialists. Hospitals often operate on generators because of disrupted power supplies, and spare parts for some machines are unavailable.

On the eve of the war, Gaza's hospitals had run out of 250 of the basic 1,000 health care items, and were short on 105 of 480 essential drugs, including some cancer medications and anesthetics, said Mahmoud Daher, a representative of the World Health Organization.

In this vulnerable condition, disaster struck. On Dec. 27, the first day of the war, Israeli warplanes bombed Hamas security compounds across Gaza, killing about 220 people, most of them Hamas police, and wounding some 300 people, according to Health Ministry officials.

Shifa, Gaza's central hospital, was overwhelmed.

Its six operating theaters couldn't cope with the waves of seriously wounded. Staff nurse Jihad Ashkar, a 22-year veteran at Shifa, said he had never before seen so many people with multiple injuries that required hours-long surgeries.

"The injured people waited for many hours to enter the theater, so we lost many injured people because we haven't the equipment or operating rooms," said Ashkar."

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