GAZA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Electric generators at Beit Hanoun Hospital in northern Gaza Strip shut down on Thursday due to a severe fuel shortage that hospitals in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave are passing through, a senior health ministry official said.
Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the health ministry in Gaza, said in an emailed press statement sent to Xinhua that the generator of Beit Hanoun Hospital has shut down, "as it ran out of fuel."
"Due to the fuel crises, the hospitals are relying on emergency small capacity generators to maintain the minimal level of the most vital services," he said, adding "in an unprecedented and rapid deterioration, the fuel crisis in hospitals and primary care centers continues to reach critical levels."
He went on saying that this situation had imposed hard reality on the health scene in the Gaza strip, "which we have warned a few days ago."
The spokesman unveiled that five other hospitals, namely Abu Yusuf Al Najjar Hospital in Rafah, Eye Hospital, Psychiatric Hospital, Rantisi Specialized Hospital for Children and Al Nasr Children Hospital in Gaza City will be unable to provide patients with health services within the next few hours.
"The health ministry's rationalization measures and plans to redistribute the minimally remaining amounts of fuel are not acceptable anymore. This means that 340,000 people will soon be deprived from essential health service in hospitals," he added.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health warned of the continuation of this crisis, which will affect the work of the medical staff in the hospitals.
"The crisis is leading to a state of confusion, which means postponing surgical operations, laboratory tests, blood tests, and stopping the work of the Radiology Departments and supportive services, such as laundry and sterilization," he said.
He added that "we are talking about five other hospitals which began the counting down to the critical moments touching patients' lives."
"This means depriving patients with renal failure, cancer patients, thalassemia, cardiac and psychiatric patients, premature babies in incubators, intensive care units and other," al-Qedra warned.
He urged all bodies concerned to step up and end the fuel crisis that will eventually hit the entire life-saving services.
Earlier on Thursday, the Gaza-based Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS) warned that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is deteriorating due to an Israeli blockade that had been imposed on the coastal enclave since 2007.
PCAS, in a press statement, said 90 percent of factories in Gaza have been badly damaged due to the Israeli blockade and the growing rates of unemployment among young men which had reached 65 percent.
It showed that the per-day income of a Palestinian citizen in the Strip, with a population of around two million people, has reached two U.S. dollars in an area where 85 percent are under poverty line.
