"We Need More Medicines"

Chris Hook has been working with Médecins Sans Frontieres MSF)/Doctors Without Borders since 2015. He was recently the Head of Medical Teams in Gaza and describes what it’s like to do care work in a city under siege

- Chris Hook

I left Gaza on December 18 after spending five weeks in Khan Yunis. These were some of the most harrowing days I have lived through in my eight years of working as a doctor with MSF. 

Entering Gaza was scary. Even though I was in Egypt for three weeks preparing for the Gaza mission, no one really knew what kind of security situation my team and I were going to face. We planned to go to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza to support the staff there. But despite being in touch with people there, we had no way to really know how the situation was. 

When we arrived, there were still plenty of staff members around since a majority of the attacks until then had mainly been focused in the north and Gaza City. Whilst lots of attacks had occurred in the South as well, Khan Yunis itself didn’t have to evacuate. However, the city was absorbing evacuees from Gaza City, which was putting a further strain on healthcare facilities.  

When I arrived at Nasser hospital, I found a big IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp as most hospitals in Gaza are doubling up as shelters. When I reached, the hospital had already exceeded bed capacity by 200 per cent. By the time I left, they were at 350 per cent bed capacity.

Inside the hospital, it was impossible to know which patients were more critically injured or who needed what kind of treatment. Providing the required level of care was difficult due to the lack of resources. Finding space to treat patients was almost impossible.