Jan, 2021
Medical aid helps ensure patients in Gaza receive essential healthcare
Every winter, 9-year-old Yaseen gets sick. His parents take him to visit the doctor at their nearby clinic. Today, he is at the Pulse of Life Medical Center in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, with a respiratory infection. Yaseen is having difficulty breathing and has a painfully sore throat.
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"My son gets the flu so easily during winter," his mother, Um Yaseen, says.
Upon arrival at the clinic, he is promptly admitted to the emergency room and prescribed medication delivered through a nebulizer to treat his shortness of breath. The clinic must dilute Yaseen’s bronchodilator medication with saline solution before he inhales it.
The saline is available at the clinic thanks to a generous donation of medical aid from Americares that Anera recently distributed to healthcare providers across Gaza.
Dr. Mohamed Ferwana swirls the nebulizer and saline to mix the contents, before connecting the mouthpiece. He then guides Yaseen to put the mask securely over his nose and mouth and to take slow, regular breaths until the medicine is absorbed.
Patients like Yaseen breath through the nebulizer for up to 15 minutes to ensure full absorption. Saline is essential and widely used in hospitals because of its broad utility, including for cleaning wounds, clearing sinuses, treating dehydration and diluting medicines.
Because hospitals use it so frequently, there is a dire need for supplies of saline in local clinics and hospitals across Gaza.
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Thanks to a recent Americares shipment, Anera recently distributed IV solutions (lactated ringer solution, 0.9% sodium chloride solution and 1,000 ml saline solution) to eight local clinics and hospitals in Gaza, including the Pulse of Life Clinic.
