Gaza dialysis patients face a ‘very real’ threat of death

Gaza dialysis patients face a ‘very real’ threat of death

Motasem A Dalloul

Sitting beside her 13-year old son, Ali Al-Asi, who was in his bed in the Renal Dialysis Unit at Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City, Umm Ali looked “frustrated” and “angry” with the “Palestinian politicians” who insist on involving her son in their “political disputes”. Aged just 13 and from Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, his kidney disease means that Ali has been travelling three times a week for dialysis in the hospital for four years. He is one of more than 400 kidney patients in the coastal enclave, and one of almost 30 children.

“My hope is to recover from my disease and live a normal life without this machine,” said Ali, pointing to the dialysis machine next to him; he calls it a “horrible monster”. Other patients call it the “mercy tool”.

Palestinian children in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip used to receive dialysis treatment either in adult units in Palestinian hospitals or in Israel. Six years ago, under the Israeli siege, the Palestinian government led by Hamas built Al-Rantisi Hospital and set up a dialysis unit for children. Last year, the hospital of Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus opened a similar department.

Patients suffering from chronic kidney failure must spend up to four hours in each session attached to a dialysis machine, which circulates their blood through a filtration system to remove toxins before returning it to their bodies. “Normally, patients have the dialysis treatment three times a week,” Nurse Lamya Mansour of the Renal Dialysis Unit told MEMO, “but some cases are obliged to have dialysis up to five, six or seven times a week.”

Mohamed Qoota, 10, is also from Rafah. He has daily dialysis and needs five different medicines, including antibiotics, hormones and supplements. Mohamed’s father, who was watching the dialysis machine beside the bed of his son, was unable to speak. “Excuse me, sir,” he told me, “I cannot speak right now as my eyes are turning from my son to the machine and back again.”

Nurse Lamya interrupted me while I was trying to speak to Abu Mohamed. “He has been worried since he knew that some of the spare parts and the other stuff needed for the continuation of the treatment of his son are running out soon,” she explained.

Such families, she pointed out, have been living in “total despair” for about two weeks. “That’s when we issued an initial warning about a potential lack of spare parts and medication needed for the Renal Dialysis Unit.” Staff in the unit, continued Lamya, have been doing their best to guarantee the continuation of this service for the innocent children. “However, we told them to be prepared for any potential emergency.”

According to Paediatrician Mustafa Al-Eila, the Director of Al-Rantisi Hospital, essential spare parts for medical equipment and medication needed for most of the departments and units are going to run out soon, but he insisted that the situation for the dialysis patients is special.

“We urgently need haemodialysis F3 and F 4, bloodlines volume 56cm3 and 80cm3 and erythropoietin epoetin,” Al-Eila revealed. “Almost all 28 patients in the Renal Dialysis Unit are facing the very real threat of death if we don’t get this stuff soon.”

The head of medical disposables in the ministry of health in Gaza said that the equivalent ministry in Ramallah has sent only 16 per cent of the needed disposables for hospitals across the Gaza Strip since the start of this year.

“There is a severe shortage of medicines, medical equipment and spare parts,” stressed Muneer Al-Borsh. He noted that there is a list of more than 60 medicines, offered free-of-charge to patients, with a “zero deposit” in the pharmacies of Gaza’s hospitals.

According to Al-Eila, child patients can receive dialysis treatment via machines designed for adults, “but six out of eight are going to die.”

Nurse Hussein Tapash said that in case of emergency, there are alternatives for the children with kidney failure, but he does not think that they are practical. “One alternative is to travel to Israel to receive dialysis there,” he said, “but it is not easy to get a travel permit from the Israelis. Other alternatives are expensive, unsustainable and unreliable, and need a lot of effort.”

For Umm Ali, none of the alternatives are acceptable, for two reasons. “We have no money for medicines, because we have no income,” she said. “And my husband and I were prevented from travelling to Israel with our other son who died in 2010; he had kidney failure for two years.”

She told me that all that she needs from the Palestinian politicians is “not to connect her son’s disease with their political disputes.” The shortage of spare parts and medicines is a result, she insists, of the dispute between Fatah in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza.

“Before 2014, we depended on local income and some charities to buy our requirements through local companies,” said Al-Borsh, “but now, we have no budget and we are unable to do anything.” He blamed the unity government for the problem at the hospital.

However, Al-Eila said that the problem is due to the lack of a budget allocated for minors suffering from kidney failure. “This service has never been on the ministry’s budget despite the unit being open for the past five years.”

The final word came from Nurse Lamya. She hopes that these children and their treatment problems are no longer used by politicians to score points off each other. “All that they need is to live their normal life,” she concluded. Who could disagree with her?

Images by MEMO photographer Motasem A Dalloul.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.