Doctor in Gaza working in ‘active war zone’

Dr Frost, who has been working in Gaza since September, said her facility in al-Zawaida, central Gaza, is seeing between 300 and 400 patients a day.

“We are dealing with people who are involved in mass-casualty incidents, from air strikes, we are seeing people with shrapnel… traumatic amputation, blast injuries, lots of limb fractures,” she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

“Skin infections, upper respiratory tract infections – sadly these are simple things to treat but currently we just don’t have the medication to treat these,” she said.

Dr Frost, who is running the hospital for the charity UK-Med, said she had previously worked in challenging humanitarian contexts, but “never have I had such a lack of basic items needed to be a doctor”.

She said gloves and dressing are in “chronic short supply”, and there is also a “severe lack of medication”.

Her hospital also operates a weekly malnutrition clinic for babies and young children, but said the “number of severely malnourished children is rising” each week.

“The management of such cases is complex and we really don’t have the resources to manage these effectively,” she said.