Thousands of Palestinians, including newborn babies, evacuated from Gaza to Egypt with urgent medical needs are receiving critical support from Save the Children as part of a Community Jameel-funded initiative to support pregnant mothers and children.
With Community Jameel’s support, Save the Children has procured 20 incubators and other medical supplies and installed these in Ministry of Health neonatal intensive care units in Egypt, where medics are delivering urgent obstetric and paediatric care to mothers and neonates, including preterm babies, who have been evacuated from Gaza.
Since October 2023, around 5,000 people have been evacuated for treatment outside Gaza, with over 80% receiving care in Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and a further 10,000 patients currently in need of medical evacuation for specialised care. This includes newborn babies requiring intensive care whose families are trying to evacuate them following the bombing of specialist maternity units across Gaza.
The number of evacuations has decreased drastically since the closure of border crossings, with around 2,150 patients unable to leave Gaza since May due to the closure of the Rafah crossing. The health system in Gaza has all but collapsed, with the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that, as the war continues to drive critical medical needs, the number of patients requiring medical evacuation is expected to increase. Relentless bombardment and the ongoing siege have dismantled the healthcare infrastructure, with 19 out of 36 hospitals out of service.
The WHO also said that there are more than 500,000 women of reproductive age in Gaza who now lack access to essential services including antenatal and postnatal care. Maternity services are only provided at eight out of 17 partially functioning hospitals, and at four field hospitals.
Since last October, Gaza’s Ministry of Health has estimated that 20,000 babies have been born in the Gaza Strip. Research shows that about 15% of women giving birth are likely to experience complications in pregnancy.
Matteo Caprotti, Country Director at Save the Children Egypt, said:
“Repeated so-called “evacuation” orders, access restrictions on medical supplies and fuel and attacks on hospitals and medical points in Gaza are destroying children’s chances to get life-saving treatment. Those who managed to be evacuated to Egypt are suffering from injuries and are haunted by the horrors they have experienced. We’re proud to partner with Community Jameel to provide Palestinian children with the support they have a right to and so critically need.”
George Richards, Director of at Community Jameel, said:
“Palestinian mothers in Gaza are giving birth in traumatic, unhygienic and undignified conditions without access to basic care. Some women are self-inducing labour to avoid giving birth on the move, while others are scared to seek vital prenatal care because of fears of bombing, and some have died due to a lack of access to doctors. With Community Jameel’s support, Save the Children is providing lifesaving treatment to pregnant mothers and newborn babies in need of urgent care who are evacuated from Gaza through the Rafah crossing to Egypt.”
With Community Jameel’s support, Save the Children is also providing equipment and specialist training to Egyptian ambulance paramedics, who receive and transport medical evacuees from Gaza, including training on child safeguarding and psychological first aid and self-care. Faced with a humanitarian emergency where patients, including children, have suffered deprivation of basic necessities, trauma and catastrophic injuries, paramedics require specialist skills to manage their mental health and wellbeing.
Hakim*, a paramedic who received psychological first aid and safeguarding training from Save the Children as part of the initiative, said:
“I learned that we must build a secure bridge between us and the children to make them feel safe and help them calm down. You start to examine the child’s condition afterwards because first you must establish trust with the child and help them feel secure. For children who have been subjected to a psychological trauma such as the war in Gaza, treatment will vary based on their age. Children who are younger than three will require special treatment because they cannot fully verbally express themselves, they can only cry. This makes identifying what they need more challenging.”
Following initial training of about 90 paramedics, the Egyptian ambulance authority has now requested Save the Children to scale up training to its full staff of 16,000 paramedics as they rotate from across Egypt into the North Sinai governorate to support the Gaza crisis response.
Save the Children in Egypt has been supporting Palestinian children and families who have fled the war in Gaza into Egypt with urgent assistance and support, providing mental health and psychosocial (MHPSS) sessions to children and adults, health services and cash assistance to thousands of stranded Palestinians to support them to meet their basic needs. Since the beginning of the crisis and up until the closure of the Rafah crossing, Save the Children has procured and delivered emergency humanitarian assistance to Gaza through the crossing, including water, medicine, food parcels, shelter kits, baby and dignity kits.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Save the Children.
