Red Cross sets up Rafah emergency field hospital

Staff at the new facility will be able to treat around 200 people a day and can provide emergency surgical care and manage mass casualties as well as provide pediatric and other services.

 Volunteers from Emirates Red Crescent prepare parcels with humanitarian aid for Gaza to be transferred through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Cairo, Egypt, March 30, 2024. (photo credit: REUTERS/SHOKRY HUSSEIN)
Volunteers from Emirates Red Crescent prepare parcels with humanitarian aid for Gaza to be transferred through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Cairo, Egypt, March 30, 2024.
(photo credit: REUTERS/SHOKRY HUSSEIN)

The International Red Cross and partners are opening a field hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday to try to meet what it described as "overwhelming" demand for health services since Israel's military operation on Rafah began last week.

Some health clinics have suspended activities while patients and medics have fled from a major hospital as Israel has stepped up bombardments in the southern sliver of Gaza where hundreds of thousands of uprooted people are crowded together.

"People in Gaza are struggling to access the medical care they urgently need due, in part, to the overwhelming demands for health services and the reduced number of functioning health facilities," the International Committee of the Red Cross said. "Doctors and nurses have been working around the clock, but their capacity has been stretched beyond its limit."

Treating 200 people a day

Staff at the new facility will be able to treat around 200 people a day and can provide emergency surgical care and manage mass casualties as well as provide pediatric and other services, the ICRC said.

"Medical staff are faced with people arriving with severe injuries, increasing communicable diseases which could lead to potential outbreaks, and complication related to chronic diseases untreated that should have been treated days earlier."

 A volunteer from Emirates Red Crescent prepares parcels with humanitarian aid for Gaza to be transferred through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Cairo, Egypt, March 30, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/SHOKRY HUSSEIN)
A volunteer from Emirates Red Crescent prepares parcels with humanitarian aid for Gaza to be transferred through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in Cairo, Egypt, March 30, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/SHOKRY HUSSEIN)

The ICRC will maintain medical supplies to the facility while the Red Cross societies from 11 countries including Canada, Germany, Norway and Japan are providing staff and equipment.