I had intently adopted the genocidal conflict in Gaza for 9 months when a chance got here round to volunteer as a part of a medical mission organised by the United Nations, World Well being Group and the Palestinian American Medical Affiliation.
As a educated nephrologist, a physician who treats sufferers with kidney illness, I felt there was a vital want for specialised medical care amid the collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza and the excessive variety of medical specialists who had been killed.
I additionally felt it was my obligation as a Muslim to assist the folks of Gaza. Islam teaches us that whoever saves one life, it’s as if he had saved all of humanity; taking good care of others is an act of worship, and standing up towards injustice is an ethical obligation.
I consider my levels should not meant to easily grasp on the partitions of an air-conditioned workplace or assist me drive the nicest automotive or reside in an costly neighbourhood. They’re a testomony to the truth that I’ve taken an oath to dedicate my experience to the service of humanity, to take care of the utmost respect for human life and to supply my medical data and compassion to these in want.
So on July 16, I departed for Gaza with a number of different medics.
We entered the strip via the Karem Abu Salem crossing. We went from observing the prosperity, consolation and wealth of the Israeli aspect to recoiling on the destruction, devastation and distress of the Palestinian aspect. We mainly noticed what apartheid appears like.
On our brief journey via southern Gaza to succeed in our vacation spot in Khan Younis, we noticed many buildings bombed, broken or destroyed. Properties, colleges, outlets, hospitals, mosques – you identify it.
The quantity of rubble was sickening. To at the present time, I can’t unsee the landscapes of destruction I witnessed in Gaza.
We have been accommodated in Al-Nasser Hospital as a result of it was too harmful to remain at some other place. We have been welcomed and cared for a lot that I felt embarrassed. We have been seen as saviours.
I handled sufferers with kidney issues, labored as a main care doctor and typically helped throughout mass casualty occasions within the emergency room.
The creator with one in all his sufferers at Al Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip (Courtesy of Talal Khan)
Dialysis requires clear water, sterile provides, dependable electrical energy, drugs and gear that have to be maintained and changed – none of which was assured below the Israeli blockade. Every dialysis session was a problem. Each delay elevated the danger of my sufferers dying. A lot of them did die – a truth I struggled to simply accept, figuring out that below regular circumstances, a lot of them may have been saved and lived regular lives.
I keep in mind the smiling face of one in all my sufferers, Waleed, a younger man who suffered from kidney failure attributable to early-onset hypertension, a situation that, with entry to correct therapy, may have been managed appropriately.
Dialysis was Waleed’s lifeline, however he couldn’t get an satisfactory variety of classes as a result of Israeli blockade inflicting extreme shortages of medical provides. Malnutrition and worsening dwelling situations solely accelerated his decline.
I keep in mind how wanting breath he was, his physique overloaded with fluid and his blood stress dangerously excessive. And but, each time I noticed him, Waleed greeted me with a heat smile, his spirit one way or the other intact, his mom all the time by his aspect. Just a few months after I left Gaza, Waleed handed away.
One other affected person of mine was Hussein, a delicate, kind-hearted, deeply revered man. His kids cared for him with love and dignity.
He suffered from extreme hypokalaemia and acidosis: His physique’s potassium ranges have been dangerously low, and acid constructed as much as poisonous ranges. To deal with his situation, he wanted primary drugs: potassium dietary supplements and sodium bicarbonate drugs.
These have been easy, cheap, life-saving medicines, and but, the Israeli blockade didn’t enable them in. As a result of he couldn’t discover these drugs, Hussein was hospitalised a number of instances for intravenous potassium supplementation.
Regardless of his immense struggling, Hussein remained gracious, courageous and full of religion. When talking, he all the time repeated the phrase Alhamdulillah (reward be to God). He handed away a number of weeks in the past, I used to be informed.
Waleed and Hussein ought to be right here – smiling, laughing, dwelling fortunately with their households. As an alternative, they turned casualties of siege and silence. These are two of so many tragic tales I do know of and I witnessed. So many stunning lives that might have been saved have been misplaced.
Regardless of this grim actuality, my colleagues in Gaza proceed to do their utmost for his or her sufferers.
These are medics who’re bruised in each approach. They aren’t solely battling the every day struggles of life like all different Palestinians in Gaza but in addition witnessing every day horrors of headless infants, amputated limbs, totally burned human beings and typically the lifeless stays of their very own family members.
Think about working with no anaesthesia, restricted ache drugs, only a few antibiotics. Think about surgeons scrubbing with plain water, kids present process amputations with no sedation, full-body burns sufferers’ dressings being modified with no ache aid.
Nonetheless these healthcare heroes simply preserve going.
One of many nurses I labored with, Arafat, made a deep impression on me. He was dwelling in a makeshift shelter with a number of relations. It supplied no safety towards the weather – the chilly winter, the scorching warmth or the drenching rain.
He starved – like all different Palestinians in Gaza – dropping 15kg (33lb) in 9 months. He walked 2km to 3km (1 to 2 miles) daily to work with worn-out sandals, dealing with the hazard of Israeli drones bombing or capturing him on the street.
And but, the smile by no means left his face. He took care of greater than 280 dialysis sufferers, treating them with care, attentively listening to their anxious households and uplifting his colleagues with mild humour.
I felt so small subsequent to heroes like Arafat. His and his colleagues’ resilience and persistence have been unbelievable.
Whereas in Gaza, I had the chance to go to Al-Shifa Hospital with a UN delegation. What as soon as was Gaza’s largest and most significant medical centre was diminished to ruins. The hospital that was as soon as an emblem of hope and therapeutic had turn out to be an emblem of demise and destruction, of the deliberate dismantling of healthcare. It was past heartbreaking to see its charred, bombed-out stays.
I stayed in Gaza for 22 days. It was an absolute honour to go to, serve and be taught life from the resilient folks of Gaza. Their relentless braveness and dedication will stick with me till I die.
Regardless of witnessing what I may have by no means imagined, I didn’t have the urge to go away. I wished to remain. Again in the US, I felt profound guilt that I left behind my colleagues and my sufferers, that I didn’t keep, that I didn’t do sufficient.
Feeling this fixed heartache, I can’t perceive the rising variety of people who find themselves accustomed to the every day reviews of Palestinian deaths and pictures of torn our bodies and ravenous kids.
As human beings and as well being staff, we can’t give up on Gaza. We can’t keep silent and passive. We should converse out and act on the devastation of healthcare and assaults on our colleagues within the Gaza Strip.
Already fewer and fewer healthcare staff are being allowed to enter Gaza on medical missions. The present blockade has prevented all medical provides from stepping into.
We, as healthcare professionals, should mobilise to demand a right away lifting of the siege and free entry to medical missions. We should not cease volunteering to assist the struggling medical groups in Gaza. Such acts of talking out and volunteering give our colleagues in Gaza the hope and luxury that they haven’t been deserted.
Allow us to not enable Gaza to be only a image of destruction. As an alternative, let or not it’s the instance of unbreakable spirit.
Stand, converse and act – so historical past remembers not simply the tragedy but in addition the triumph of human compassion.
Allow us to uphold human dignity.
Allow us to inform Gaza, you aren’t alone!
Humanity is in your aspect!
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
