Inside the oncology department at Nasser Medical Complex, the struggle extends beyond battling cancer to finding even the most basic necessities for treatment. Doctors warn that the depletion of chemotherapy drugs threatens the lives of thousands of patients, as travel for those needing treatment outside the Gaza Strip remains severely hampered.
One patient says she no longer knows where to turn for treatment, emphasizing that chemotherapy is only partially available and that she receives only one type, while the other necessary medications have disappeared.
She tells Al Jazeera Mubasher that the available treatment has caused painful changes to her skin, face, and body, and when doctors try to replace it, they find no alternative. She adds with anguish that the interruption of treatment means death to her, because cancer “has no cure other than chemotherapy.”
In a wheelchair, another patient, exhausted by months of waiting, sits. After undergoing a bone marrow transplant, she stopped receiving her biological therapy about ten months ago. She says her health is deteriorating day by day, and that she “dies a hundred times every day” from the intense pain and lack of medication. Even the painkillers that used to alleviate her suffering are no longer available. She adds that she had a medical referral to travel outside Gaza and was supposed to leave four months ago, but she is still waiting in vain. Between food shortages and a lack of potable water, she has been forced to use water she knows is harmful to her health because she has no alternative.
The suffering of medical staff is not much different from that of patients. One of the nurses in the oncology department says that the department receives about 100 patients daily for check-ups or to receive treatment doses, but the shortage is not limited to medicines, but extends to basic supplies, even the blood sample collection tubes needed to conduct tests before giving treatment have become scarce, which hinders the provision of medical care and doubles the suffering of patients.
