Your Life is the Most Valuable Thing You Have

Article Written By: Hanan Abu Qasem Administrative Director, Gaza Office

Gaza's Initiative to Stop The Bleeding

"I expected that if the bleeding was profuse, it would be difficult to stop it...and thus the patient would lose their life immediately, and there was no need for intervention at that time."  Mina, Attending Trainee.  

However, after receiving a training course on how to stop life-threatening bleeding with the Glia Gaza office as part of the Your Life is Your Most Valuable Thing initiative, Mina became certain that anyone could save the lives of injured people with this low-cost, lightweight and easy to use device - the Glia Tourniquet.

A tourniquet is a vital tool for use by first responders to stabilize gunshot and penetrating wound victims, especially for victims who are injured at great distances from medical centers. The tourniquet prevents death caused by bleeding by restricting blood flow to the affected limb, which in turn prevents severe bleeding that may lead to death. It is one of the important interventions within the three-element wound care protocol, wound pressure, packing with gauze, and applying a tourniquet close to the bleeding wound.  

Glia succeeded in manufacturing a tourniquet locally in Gaza through 3D printing technology using homemade printers, in order to avoid the high cost of importing it from abroad and the difficulty of entering it into Gaza due to the continuation of the blockade imposed on Gaza for more than 15 years. It is also worth noting that Glia Tourniquet is open source, and manufacturing files can be viewed and printed by anyone anywhere in the world. Due to the fact that Gaza is considered to be an ongoing hot conflict area, several initiatives which include training on bleeding control using Tourniquets have been implemented in Gaza, the latest being called “Your Life is Your Most Valuable Thing”. 

This latest initiative trained thirty young individuals on the importance of using a tourniquet, as well as other methods to control life threatening bleeding, and learned of the difference these measures make in saving the life of an injured person. The attendees expressed their gratitude and thanks to the Glia Gaza team for this qualitative and valuable training, and how important it is for everyone to have the necessary skills required to deal with any life-threatening bleeding injury.

At the end of the training, the participants received a certificate of participation in the course from the Glia Gaza Office, in addition to a personal first aid kit containing a Glia tourniquet and other important tools used to stop fatal bleeding.