Gaza hospitals struggle with critical shortages as laboratory services collapse

• Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital struggles to provide vital diagnostic tests amid shortages and failing equipment

• Blood gas testing is suspended, while clinical analysers, sterilisation equipment and blood-storage refrigerators are out of service

• More than 75 per cent of medical imaging equipment is reportedly out of service, with laboratory material shortages at 87 per cent

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, laboratory director Bassem Hassan and his team work under mounting pressure, trying to keep vital diagnostic services running with dwindling supplies and failing equipment.

Every test carries weight. The results can help doctors determine whether a patient is battling kidney disease, diabetes, heart problems or cancer, and guide them towards the treatment that could make the difference between recovery and further deterioration.

But years of war and siege have battered Gaza’s medical infrastructure, leaving hospitals struggling to obtain the materials and equipment needed to perform even basic diagnostic tests, the Al Jazeera reported.

Blood gas testing has been suspended, cutting off an important diagnostic service for cardiac and intensive-care patients. Supplies of blood-collection tubes, essential for clinical chemistry tests, are also running dangerously low.

The laboratory’s automated clinical chemistry analysers, which normally handle more than 60 per cent of its tests, have stopped functioning. Some sterilisation equipment has ceased working, while refrigerators used to preserve blood and plasma are also out of service.

Faced with these shortages, Hassan says his team has been forced to make difficult choices, prioritising tests according to the severity of each patient’s condition. Kidney, cancer and heart patients, along with those in intensive care, are being given priority.

For doctors, the consequences extend far beyond a laboratory report. Test results help determine medication dosages, track whether patients are responding to treatment and guide urgent medical decisions.

Without that information, doctors are left to navigate an already perilous situation with a crucial piece of the diagnostic puzzle missing — making it harder to determine the treatment a patient needs at a moment when time can be critical.

As the third anniversary of the war on Gaza approaches, the damage extends well beyond the walls of individual hospitals. More than three-quarters of medical imaging equipment across the enclave is reportedly out of service, while shortages of laboratory testing materials have reached 87 per cent.

A 74 per cent deficit in essential laboratory and diagnostic consumables has further strained a health system already operating under immense pressure, leaving doctors with fewer tools to detect disease, monitor patients and make potentially life-saving decisions.