Pregnant women in Gaza do not get health care, Gaza hospitals have difficulty coping with the wounded, warns UN official Pamela Delargy

[ 15/01/2009 - 12:56 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

A UN official warned of the dangers faced by Palestinian pregnant women in the Gaza Strip where they do not have access to health services or adequate nutrition and do not find room inside hospitals.

Pamela Delargy, the head of the UN population fund's humanitarian response branch, said that most of the women in Gaza are forced to deliver at home because delivery wards are used as surgical facilities to treat the wounded.

Delargy added that the women in Gaza are not able to go out to clinics or to reach hospitals for delivery because of the constant Israeli bombardment which has also serious health consequences on pregnancies.

She pointed out that the Gaza women give birth everyday to almost 170 babies and both women and their babies are at risk because of the inability to get even the most basic health services or good nutrition.

In the meanwhile, the death toll of the 19-day Israeli military aggression on Gaza rose to about a 1,000 Palestinians and the injuries to 4,500. The vast majority of the Palestinian casualties are civilians.

Dr. Mu'awiya Hassanain, the director of emergency services in the health ministry, told the PIC that Israel killed so far 980 Palestinians including 315 children and 95 women.

Dr. Hassanain also noted that Israel killed 13 paramedics, wounded 32 others and destroyed 15 ambulances in addition to other number of civil defense vehicles during 19 days of military aggression.

In another context, the IOF troops admitted the injury of only 10 soldiers and officers including the commander of unit 101 during fierce confrontations that started on Tuesday with the Palestinian resistance on the outskirts of Gaza Strip cities, but as usual they hide the real number of deaths in their ranks.

Israel so far acknowledged the death of 10 of its troops and the injury of more than 150 others.

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