Gaza Health Crisis Deepens Amid Severe Medicine Shortages

Gaza’s healthcare crisis is deepening as critical shortages of medicines and medical supplies threaten thousands of cancer, kidney and chronic-disease patients. Hospitals continue operating at severely limited capacity after widespread destruction of the enclave’s health infrastructure.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, said Thursday that fifty percent of listed medicines are completely out of stock. More than three hundred medications for chronic illnesses have been depleted while medical consumables face a seventy percent shortage affecting roughly five hundred fifty essential items.

Laboratory supplies are in even shorter supply with about eighty percent of materials unavailable. X-ray, MRI and CT imaging services have largely been knocked out leaving doctors without critical diagnostic tools. This deprives patients and wounded Palestinians of potentially lifesaving care during this emergency.

Kidney patients face immediate danger as available bicarbonate supplies for dialysis are sufficient for only about ten days. Without new shipments hospitals could again be forced to shorten dialysis sessions to keep the service operating for those who desperately need regular treatment to survive.

Chemotherapy and biological treatment protocols have been suspended for roughly eleven thousand patients including about four thousand five hundred who urgently require treatment. Abu Salmiya reported between three and four deaths each day among cancer and blood-disease patients as specialized facilities remain destroyed or inaccessible.

More than seventy thousand diabetes patients face shortages of insulin pens and blood-glucose testing strips. Worsening malnutrition places children at additional risk including cases of stunted growth. The health workforce has also suffered enormous losses with more than seventeen hundred workers killed since October two thousand twenty-three.