Gaza doctors face tough decisions as patients face long waits for diagnoses
Eyad Qatrawi reports in Al Jazeera on 29 September 2026:
At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital here in central Gaza, Bassem Hassan, director of the laboratory department, deals with medical tests whose results will determine the futures of his patients. Hassan’s team gives doctors the information they need to diagnose a range of illnesses, from kidney disease to diabetes, and without this crucial information, they will not know how to proceed with their cases.
But Israel’s genocidal war and siege on Gaza has resulted in widespread damage to medical infrastructure and shortages of key materials needed to make diagnoses. There has been a suspension of all blood gas testing, which is particularly important for cardiac and intensive-care patients, and shortages of blood-collection tubes, which are essential for clinical chemistry tests.
Automated clinical chemistry analysers, which laboratories rely on for more than 60 percent of their tests, have also stopped operating. Some sterilisation equipment and refrigerators used to store blood and plasma have also ceased working.
“Given these limited resources, tests are prioritised according to the severity of each case with priority given to kidney, cancer and heart patients as well as those in intensive care,” Hassan told Al Jazeera.
Doctors know that laboratory test results are needed to determine the correct medication dosages given to patients, monitor their responses to treatment and make urgent medical decisions. Without this information, doctors are left without a key part of the jigsaw puzzle that could determine the death or survival of a patient.
As the third anniversary of the war on Gaza approaches, more than three-quarters of medical imaging equipment in the enclave is out of service. Shortages of laboratory testing materials are at 87 percent, and there is a 74 percent deficit in essential consumables required for laboratory and diagnostic testing.