No vacancy: Gaza's hospital bed occupancy rate has reached to an 'unprecedented' 300%

On the floor of a narrow corridor inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, 27-year-old Mahmoud Abu Salim lies on a worn-out blanket, surrounded by the groans of the wounded and the hurried footsteps of doctors and nurses rushing between patients. Just four days ago, this young man was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza while waiting for the arrival of food aid trucks.

Pointing to his bandaged leg, Abu Salim remarked to The New Arab, "When I arrived at the hospital, I couldn't find an empty bed… I saw dozens like me lying on the ground. The doctors told me that available beds were very limited and reserved only for critical cases fighting for their lives. They performed surgery to extract the bullet while I was lying on the floor, then sent me back to the corridor."

The scene inside the hospital is a humanitarian catastrophe. Emergency and inpatient departments have exceeded three times their actual capacity. Corridors overflow with the wounded, while courtyards have been transformed to makeshift emergency rooms. Dozens of doctors and nurses are forced to treat patients amid severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies, while corpses are sometimes left for hours on the ground due to insufficient refrigerators.

"I feel like just another number in a long line of the injured… but I appreciate what the doctors are doing, they are working beyond their capacity. One doctor told me: 'If we had 100 more beds, they would be filled in less than an hour'," Abu Salim added.

As Abu Salim tries to cope with his pain on the corridor floor, he glances at another wounded man beside him, injured in the chest and receiving oxygen while sitting on a plastic chair. "We thought the hospital was the safest place after being injured, but now it has become another battlefield… no beds, no medicine, no space," he said.

This scene at Al-Shifa Hospital repeats itself throughout the coastal enclave. This hospital, the largest in the Gaza Strip and the main artery of the health system, has had most of its departments and buildings destroyed or burned by the Israeli army.

The same conditions echo throughout all hospitals still functioning in the Strip, now only 16 partially operational—5 governmental and 11 private—out of the 38 that were working before the war. The other 22 hospitals have been completely shut down due to direct Israeli attacks.

Complete collapse

Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, told TNA, "The health situation in the Gaza Strip has reached the stage of complete collapse. What we are living today is the worst humanitarian disaster since the war began."

He said that hospital bed occupancy rate has reached 300%, an unprecedented figure underscoring the scale of the tragedy, "We no longer have vacant beds. We were forced to turn corridors, courtyards, and even balconies into treatment areas. Hundreds of patients are receiving care on the ground, and some have undergone surgery while lying on blankets."

Dr Abu Selmia further explained that hospitals in Gaza are operating with less than 1% of the sector's actual needs, noting that there is a shortage exceeding 60% in medicines and medical supplies, with the remaining stock lasting only a few days.

"Our supply of antibiotics has reached zero, which has led to worsening infections, widespread gangrene in wounds, and forcing doctors to increasingly amputate limbs due to lack of proper treatment. Even blood units and lab supplies are nearly non-existent," he described.

On the condition of paediatric wards, Abu Selmia stressed the situation is extremely dangerous. "We are witnessing unprecedented overcrowding in incubators, with up to four babies placed in a single unit. This alone is a medical crime forced upon us. On top of that, famine is causing new deaths every day," he described. 

"We are facing an uncontainable humanitarian catastrophe. If this situation continues, thousands of patients and wounded who could be saved will lose their lives simply because medicine and food are absent. And if Israeli threats to invade Gaza City—home to nearly one million people—are carried out, we will witness the largest massacre in modern times, before the eyes of the world," he added.

A bed as a patient's dream

On a narrow balcony belonging to the nursing department at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza City, 14-year-old Adam al-Sousi lies on a thin blanket spread over the cold floor. He was injured three days ago in an Israeli airstrike that hit Gaza's Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood, where metal shrapnel pierced his abdomen and leg. Since then, he has been receiving treatment in this exposed corner of the hospital.

Beside him, his mother sits close, her hand resting on his head, watching his breathing with deep worry. Fighting back tears, she told TNA, "Since my son was injured, I haven't left his side for a moment. I sleep next to him here on the ground, give him water, and lift his head when he is in pain. I tried to move him to a bed inside the ward, but the doctors told me it was impossible… beds are extremely limited, and reserved only for critical cases fighting death."

The balcony, turned into an emergency ward, is crowded with weary faces, wounded people lying on the ground with their bandages, and intermittent moans blending with the buzzing of a small nearby generator. Pointing to the surrounding patients, the mother said:
"Every day, I see dozens of wounded like my son being treated on the ground. It feels like the hospital is no longer a hospital, but a massive camp of wounded… no space, no beds, not even privacy."

Speaking in a faint voice as he looks at the open sky above the balcony, Adam said, "I just want to return to our tent… and sleep without pain… I'm tired of sleeping on the ground."

Nurse Issam al-Ar'eer, part of the medical staff at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, said to TNA, "Since the beginning of the war, we’ve been working in conditions that can only be described as hell. Most patients are treated on the floor or on blankets in corridors, courtyards, and balconies. This forces us nurses to bend down constantly or squat for hours to change dressings, set up IV drips, or even perform urgent procedures. My joints can't take it any more, my back is in constant pain, but there is no time to stop. Sometimes I work more than 18 hours straight without being able to rest."

"The medical situation here is miserable… we lack the most necessities: not enough beds, no available ventilators, anaesthesia drugs, antibiotics, and basic bandages are extremely scarce. We are forced to reuse some tools or look for inadequate alternatives. The daily scene breaks the heart: wounded bleeding on the ground, children screaming in pain, and mothers crying next to their sons who can't get a bed," he added.

"What hurts me most is seeing patients and wounded people die in front of me, not only because of the severity of their injuries, but because we don't have the means to save them. I can say with a clear conscience that more than 50% of those we lose every day could have been saved if we had the minimum of medical equipment. These are not natural deaths… this is a crime where the wounded are killed twice: once by the missile, and again by the forced neglect imposed on us," the nurse concluded, voice trembling with anger.