Relief workers in hospitals in Gaza are unable to use morphine or painkillers to treat civilians, as Israel’s siege on the enclave drains critical medical supplies amid persistent bombardment, a relief agency official said Monday.
“What is extremely important are the trauma kits, the surgery kits,” said Leo Cans, the Head of Mission for Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Jerusalem.
Doctors were “doing surgical operations without the correct dose of narcotics, without the correct dose of morphine,” Cans told CNN’s Max Foster.
“In terms of pain management, it’s not happening. We currently have people being operated on without having morphine. It just happened to two kids.
We have a lot of kids that are unfortunately among the wounded, and I was discussing with one of our surgeons, who received a 10-year-old yesterday, burnt on 60% of the body surface, and he didn’t end up having painkillers.
“There is no justification at all to block these essential medicines to reach the population,” Cans added.
The UN’s experts last week said that Israel’s “unspeakably cruel” blockade on Gaza is in violation of international and criminal law.
Cans also acknowledged CNN’s reporting on parents who have resorted to writing their children’s names on their limbs in the event that either they or the children are killed.
Colleagues had told him families were sleeping in the same room because “they want to live together or die together,” he said.
Health workers were also seeing the impact fuel shortages have on the functioning of hospitals and water supplies.
“Fuel is essential for the water plants in order to desalinate to water…If you don’t have fuel, you don’t have quality water,” he said, adding many Gazans were now drinking untreated water, leading to outbreaks of diarrhea.
He also called for an end to the “indiscriminate bombing.”
“Even war has rules, and you cannot bomb civilians. We have too many children, too many women arriving at the hospital. It is not acceptable.”
CNN’s Rhea Mogul and Christian Edwards contributed reporting.
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