![]() Long before coronavirus, electricity shortages have been to blame for several hospital and health center closures in the Gaza Strip. Generators need fuel, and fuel is expensive. Still, ventilators need electricity, and right now Gazans only have about eight hours of electricity per day, forcing hospitals to run on generators for the remainder of each day. “The Ministry of Health urgently needs to be provided 100 ventilators and 140 ICU beds to achieve the first response to facing the Coronavirus outbreak, as we have only 63 ventilators and 78 ICU beds ,” said the Palestine Ministry of Health in an April 1 statement. ![]() has approximately 52 ventilators per 100,000 people-which already falls well below the current need with COVID-19-Gaza has approximately three per 100,000 people. But in more ways, doctors in Gaza face COVID-19 challenges that will be unfamiliar to the majority of the world, even as other countries face their own extreme versions of this pandemic. In some ways, Khashan’s concerns are similar to those facing doctors in the U.S.: there aren’t enough ventilators, not enough beds, not enough personal protective equipment (PPE), not enough hands, not enough hospitals. “And if any of those symptoms are positive, especially the question of if you are coming from outside Gaza or have you had contact with travelers, then I have to call the infection control committee.” “If I have a new patient coming from her home to ask about the problem behind her vaginal bleeding, I have to ask her if she is having a fever or chest pain, shortness of breath, or a cough,” she said. Khashan works in the obstetric and gynecology department, but new COVID-19 protocol in both Gaza and the West Bank means she asks every patient she sees if they’re experiencing any symptoms. Since then, Gaza’s doctors have been put on high alert in an attempt to stop the virus before it's too late. Those cases and the seven to follow were detected inside the quarantine centers. By the time they arrived in Gaza, Hamas, which governs the strip, had already set up quarantine facilities for those traveling into the area. On March 22, the first two cases of the virus were detected among Palestinians in Gaza returning from Pakistan. ![]() “It’s an emergency even before corona,” said Khashan. Now, doctors and civilians alike are concerned knowing that Gaza’s medical system is unable to meet the needs of Gazans regularly, let alone if Gaza is to experience a coronavirus outbreak that mirrors China’s, Italy’s, or the U.S.’s, even by a small fraction.
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