The health care system in Gaza is hanging by a thread. Fuel, medicine and supplies have all but run out and with hospitals, infrastructure, and ambulances coming under fire, even transporting the injured is fraught with danger.
As casualties mount, more than one third of Gaza’s 35 hospitals and nearly two thirds of health clinics have been forced to close. The remaining functional facilities have less than a third of their staff and even fewer resources.
“The working conditions in our hospital are catastrophic. We lack basic life necessities and we’re struggling with a severe shortage of water,” said Yasmine, a midwife at Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility.
Dr. Nasser Fouad Bulbul, who heads the premature and neonatal care wards at the Al-Shifa hospital said, “We’ve seen a rise in premature births with the bombing of people’s homes. We’ve had to perform premature deliveries while the mother lay dying.”
With support from your generous gifts, UNFPA remains committed to delivering life saving care, medical supplies, and health services to pregnant women, newborns, and all those affected by these unspeakable conditions.
Two truckloads of UNFPA-provided reproductive health supplies arrived in Gaza earlier this month containing crucial medicine and kits to ensure safe births, including equipment and anesthesia for C-sections. These are being distributed to hospitals across Gaza, with thousands of clean delivery kits going directly to pregnant women in health facilities, shelters and other locations.
Your emergency gifts are making a material impact as giving birth becomes more dangerous for both mothers and newborns. Will you make an impact on the lives of pregnant women living through warfare by making an emergency gift today?
UNFPA condemns the violence in Israel and Gaza and echoes the UN Secretary-General’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages by Hamas, and for the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief at scale that meets the needs of the people of Gaza.
Thank you for being there for women and girls.
— USA for UNFPA