Paralysed Gaza patient risks death due to power crisis

Suffering from total paralysis since 2007, 30-year-old Yahia Humaid’s life is now critical because of the power cuts in the Gaza Strip.

In a dilapidated house in Gaza City, Yahia lies still on an iron bed after the power cuts forced him to stop using a medical bed fixed with a specialised air mattress designed to protect him from skin ulcers and other infections.

The bed is only one of many changes that have increased Yahia’s suffering. His 60-year-old father, Jabr Humaid, told the Anadolu Agency that his son’s life completely depends on electricity.

Paralysed after a bullet hit his spinal cord during the internal clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2007, Yahia has lost his ability to move, speak, breathe or eat unaided.

As a result, doctors were forced to insert a breathing stoma, opening a hole in his neck and inserting a small tube through which he can now breathe. A suction device is also used to extract phlegm from his windpipe and protect him against chest infections. The electricity-operated device, however, no longer operates as it lacks the necessary power.

If we don’t take the phlegm out of his chest, he could suffocate and die

his father said.

To enable Yahia to eat, food has to be mashed using an electric blender which shred it into particles small enough to pass through his feeding tube. “Yahia needs 6-7 meals a day,” Jabr said. “This is a healthy diet that needs to be followed, but power cuts delay his meals.”

The electricity crisis also means Yahia cannot have fan to cool him during Gaza’s summer heat. His suffering is further compounded by his family’s poor living conditions and financial situation which leaves them barely able to provide him with the minimum medications and medical support and treatment he requires.

Gaza’s sole power plant shut down in mid-April due to a shortage of fuel in the besieged Strip causing severe power outages which last 20 hours a day. Since then, a number of hospitals in the enclave have reportedly reduced the care they offer putting thousands of patients at risk. Last week, Israel vowed to stop supplying the Gaza Strip with electricity in two weeks further exacerbating an already dangerous humanitarian crisis in the enclave.