It is a new day at LifeLine Pharmacy in central Gaza’s Deir El Balah, and one diabetic man has come with hopes he will find insulin today. He is in luck. He has been to all the pharmacies that have not yet been destroyed, but either the pharmacies no longer have insulin or the little stock they do have is extremely expensive.
Before 7 October 2023, this man would have received his insulin on prescription for free at one of the 26 UNRWA clinics that operated in Gaza, or heavily subsidised at a hospital. But as of mid-July 2024, only 10 out of those 26 clinics are still operational, due to Israeli strikes.
The Israeli army’s continued destruction of healthcare facilities, its complete siege of Gaza and its controls on aid trucks allowing only minimal medical aid through Gaza’s border with Israel, mean that Gazans currently face a severe shortage of prescription medication and painkillers.
In August 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry said 60% of medication stocks were depleted and in September, the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that 65% of the insulin required is not available in Gaza. The limited medical aid that is allowed to cross the border is not enough to meet the needs of Gaza’s population.
“My goal is to be able to purchase the biggest amount of medication I can get and for doctors to dispense it either at a heavily subsidised price or for free”
As Gazans struggle to find their prescription medication, inevitably their health conditions are deteriorating and with devastating effects.
Twenty-two-year-old medical student Mohamed Hamad and his family from Beit Hanoun in North Gaza, have been displaced countless times over the past year. His mother has a chronic heart condition and since the start of the war, it has been a struggle to get hold of her prescription medication.
She went without medical treatment for months, resulting in her heart function dropping from 60% to 40% and swelling in her legs. The Israeli army’s bombs found them wherever they went and moving from one area to the next was near impossible for his mother who found it exhausting and painful to walk long distances.
Spurred on by his mother’s deteriorating health, Hamad came up with the idea to set up a pharmacy tent, LifeLine Pharmacy, in a camp for displaced Gazans in Deir El Balah.
Alongside a team of doctors and medical students, Mohamed has made it his daily mission to source the prescription medication and painkillers Gazans so desperately need, offering them for free or only a couple of shekels at his pharmacy. They often travel on foot sourcing the medication, with airstrikes continuing around them.
“Nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Mohamed says, “We are not safe even while treating patients in our pharmacy tent.”
LifeLine Pharmacy stocks medications for diabetes, high blood pressure, angina, gastrointestinal conditions and whatever Mohamed and his medical team can get hold of from pharmacies and distributors in central Gaza.
“My goal is to be able to purchase the biggest amount of medication I can get and for doctors to dispense it either at a heavily subsidised price or for free. We are also providing medical services such as antenatal services, polio vaccinations, pregnancy tests, taking people’s blood pressure, services for diabetics, medical tests and occasionally mental health services when we can provide them,” he shares with The New Arab.
“The majority of cases that come to us are wounded and injured people who need strong painkillers, which are not available in any pharmacy but I have been able to find and provide them, Alhamdulillah,” he adds.
“There’s also high demand for children’s medication and vitamins and they are not available in all pharmacies but I have been able to find and provide them. Medication for diabetes and high blood pressure has also started to be cut off.”
Medicine costs increase tenfold
Funding has been the biggest obstacle in LifeLine Pharmacy’s way to obtaining bigger stocks of medication and a wider variety.
At first, Mohamed paid for the medication out of his own funds, but he recently joined forces with UK-based registered charity Aid4Gaza. He explains that if he had more funding, he would purchase larger quantities of medication at a lower price from distributors.
At the moment, donations are coming in via Aid4Gaza but they are sporadic, which means he often buys medication in small quantities while pharmacies and distributors charge him higher prices.
Alongside prescription medication, painkillers are in high demand due to the ever-present number of injured and wounded people, in addition to children’s vitamins. In the absence of food, Gaza’s children are malnourished and in dire need of nutrition supplements.
Last month, Save the Children’s team in Gaza screened 3,000 children under the age of five and found that 20% of them were suffering from moderate acute malnutrition and 4% had severe acute malnutrition.
“Before the war, paracetamol used to cost one shekel, now a sheet of Panadol is 10 shekels,” Mohamed explains.
“Children’s bottled medicine used to be five-10 shekels, now are 20-30 shekels. Other painkillers used to be five-10 shekels, but now they reach 40 shekels. So, there is a big difference in the price of medication due to their scarcity. Some medication is entering the border from Jerusalem, but it is not enough.”
Scrambling for funds
Mohammed Mansour, the Gazan-born founder of Aid4Gaza, says that medication scarcity has affected all the operations his medical teams run in Gaza, including LifeLine Pharmacy. There have been days when people have turned up for treatment only to be turned away because there is no medication.
“Aid4Gaza works with and supports five medical teams in the Gaza Strip and the medication shortages and scarcity are deeply affecting the operations of the different medical teams, not to mention the inflated local prices due to the huge demand and little supply that gets through to the Strip,” he tells The New Arab.
“LifeLine Pharmacy has brought in a much-needed resource to securing medications through their local connections with other pharmacies, whilst ensuring the prices of medications are heavily subsidised or provided for free for families and individuals unable to afford it — that is of course contingent to funding being available,” Mohammed Mansour adds.
“More often than not, with heavy hearts, we are having to turn down patients due to not having the appropriate medication or alternatives to treat them”
Both Hamad and Mansour say that small and regular or monthly donations would enable LifeLine Pharmacy to continue operating. When donations are intermittent, the medications run out of stock and they find themselves scrambling for funds. Sometimes, they have to turn people away.
“More often than not, with heavy hearts, we are having to turn down patients due to not having the appropriate medication or alternatives to treat them. For example, on 8 October 2024, 15 patients turned up at one of our medical points and only five were treated due to the lack of medication,” explains Mohammed Mansour.
And without their prescription medication, Mohamed Hamad says sometimes the result is fatal.
“When it comes to contagious diseases, if they are not treated as soon the symptoms appear, it causes them to spread. People have died due to the inability to get their medication.”
If you would like to donate to LifeLine Pharmacy, please click here. To become a monthly ‘Small But Mighty’ supporter, please visit Aid4Gaza’s Open Collective page.
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press
Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA
