Irish born surgeon says he is unable to evacuate family from Gaza

Vivienne Clarke

Irish born doctor Dr. Ahmed Al Mukalati has told of how he and his family have been unable to evacuate Gaza where he continues to work as a surgeon at the Al Shifa hospital which treated many of the victims of the bombing of the Al Ahli hospital.

Dr Mukalati told RTÉ radio’s News at One how his hospital has run out of beds with patients on mattresses and patients waiting for beds in the already overcrowded ICU.

The injuries he was seeing included open fractures, internal bleeding and bullet trauma. People were being crushed when three to five stories of buildings collapsed on them, he said.

The hospital was running short of instruments and equipment, he said: “When disasters happen all over the world, someone would come to help. Someone would evacuate the patients out of Gaza.

"Now, Gaza is totally under the blockage. No single patient has moved out of Gaza, which means we have around 4000 patients in the hospital who need surgeries.

"For me, as a reconstructive plastic surgeon I have 80 patients waiting for surgery in my department with no slot for surges or slots for the fifth time because the life surgeons would get the priority.

"So usually we evacuate the patient, we get supports from outside. We are running out of all these resources.”

"People were coming to the hospital seeking shelter, but there was no safe place in Gaza now, he said.

"“I’m Irish by birth. The embassy has contacted us, asking us if we want to evacuate. And I said maybe my family would evacuate, but I won’t.

"Until now, for more than 10 days, no single international expat or someone or just even the UN employees or the UNWHRA, no one was able to evacuate and go out of Gaza. And so it's like a total closure of the people. No one is going outside.”