The first Spaniard to escape from Gaza, Raúl Uncertain, managed to get out of hell on November 1. This 40-year-old Valencian anesthetist is already at home in Valencia. It has left behind a horror of bombs, blood and thousands of devastated lives. Trapped since the beginning of the war in the Stripewhere he worked at hospital Al Adwa for Doctors without borders (MSF), had never experienced anything like this until now despite being used to working in conflict areas (he has recently been in Afghanistan and in Yemen).
The situation in the Strip is “catastrophic” and “dangerous”, according to reports David Cantero, coordinator of Doctors Without Borders in Palestine. The humanitarian emergency due to the war is about to make the leap to a situation of serious health emergency due to the possible outbreak of epidemics and all kinds of diseases, given the lack of drinking water, the absence of garbage collection and the conditions of overcrowding and malnutrition of more than two million people with no escape from Israel’s attacks, according to MSF.
This Monday, Doctors Without Borders organized a telematic press conference with Raúl Incertis and David Cantero so that they could narrate their experience and the situation that Gaza is going through.
The anesthetist, with astonishing serenity, explained how his 25 days in Gaza under the bombs and the terrible health situation in the country, especially in hospitals, where doctors are forced to disconnect some patients who need external equipment to survive to save energy and thus save other patients, since the electricity from the generators does not reach for all. “Doctors are being forced to take some people off mechanical ventilation depending on which patient has the best chance of surviving, the state of their wounds or their age,” Incertis explained.
Health centers are experiencing a dramatic situation due to the lack of electricity, materials and medicines and because Israel He also considers them objectives because, he alleges, they are also used by Hamas. As the anesthetist says, “the vast majority of the wounded who arrive suffer burns from the bombs and we don’t have bandages.” In the case of this type of wound, “dead tissue must be removed and the area cleaned from time to time, which must be done without painkillers or bandages, which is very dangerous because infections appear.” As Cantero adds, the lack of alcohol is forcing in some cases “disinfect wounds with vinegar“.