A volunteer doctor describes the things he has witnessed while working here at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza.
According to thoracic surgeon Ehab Massad, it is impossible to get over the scenes of children who are starving, shocked, and in pain.
As tears pour down his eyes, he adds, “I could never forget that, ever,” in a faltering voice as he tears up at the sight of a young child who is bewildered by the bombing’s devastating impact.
It will never feel like enough, the saying goes.
One of the four doctors working in Qatar has joined, Massad is a member of a medical mission run by the Rahma Worldwide organization.
He claims that no matter what we do for the people of Gaza, it will never feel like enough.
“[But] now that I feel helpless while watching the news outside of Gaza, I can at least feel like I’m doing my part,” he says.
The three other doctors who spoke to Al Jazeera also expressed the same sentiment. A long line of doctors, some of whom had to wait up to five months for a spot on a mission to open up, was described by orthopaedic surgeon Anas Hijjawi.
As ophthalmic surgeon Dr. Diyaa Rachdan declares to Al Jazeera that Tuesday would be the last day of the mission and that the doctors would return to their respective hospitals the following day, he struggles to maintain his voice.
He continues, “But I’m hoping there will be more, longer trips to Gaza in the future.”
Although their work in Gaza is challenging, these doctors are sad to be leaving their field. Instead, every day is a struggle because they simply lack the tools to deal with the volume of deaths, illnesses, and injuries they face.
During the nearly 19-month-long occupation of the besieged enclave, Israel has frequently prevented the entry of hospital supplies into Gaza. Anything that is brought in with a medical mission is forbidden.
The doctors struggle with the available medical equipment because, according to Dr. Rachdan, there is simply no other choice but to reuse “disposable” medical implements repeatedly, despite the risk that results.
Many doctors tell Al Jazeera that the thought that people in Gaza pass away from injuries and illnesses that are easily treated in any other hospital with adequate supplies is always at the forefront of their minds.
Sometimes, according to Dr. Hijjawi, we can’t cover a patient or take safety measures to keep the operating room clean.
“Sometimes, I don’t have the appropriate size of screws or metal plates to repair a limb.” I had to purchase the wrong size of the item in order for them to improve so that they could, one day, travel for more medical care.
What actually happens to people during a war?
Nothing, according to doctors who enter Gaza, could have prepared them for the level of destruction that the people there have to endure, they claim. They have done so frequently before arriving there.
Words cannot adequately describe the suffering of the patients or the medical teams’ exhaustion. Urology consultant Mohammad Almanaseer, a fourth Qatar-based volunteer, claims that they have been working almost nonstop for a year and a half.
As Dr. Almanaseer discusses the case that has had the biggest impact on him personally, the one involving a 2-year-old boy who was taken to the emergency room after Israel bombed him and his family, he speaks with a tentativeness.
He needed immediate surgery despite the regular resuscitation attempts made with him. When it became clear to us that the child was likely going to die in the operating room, I was assisting the paediatric surgeon.
The child passed away the following morning.
He even had my son’s name, and he was the same age as me. May God have your mother, who was killed in the same bombing, by his side, Kinan, little Kinan.
The medical teams deal with injuries as urgent and extreme as Kinan’s, which causes a significant number of patients who are repeatedly pushed down the list and who require less urgent care.
Like the patients who have been waiting for cataract surgery for years or months, some of whom Dr. Rachdan assisted in this mission.
The genocidal war has been foretold on behalf of the people of Gaza to continue for the rest of their lives. The visiting volunteer doctors have a strange sense of wonder at the strength of this.
Dr. Hijjawi recalls an afternoon conversation with an operating room nurse about how he bids his wife and children their final respects every day and how he struggles to get to work every day. He never knows what might happen to either of them.
Then, according to Dr. Hijjawi, “we heard ambulances coming in, and we went to the emergency room.” The OR nurse suddenly ran past us and pleaded in vain for an ambulance to take him to his house after he learned that it had been bombed.
They finally left with his parents, who had been killed, and the rest of his family, who had also been hurt, and they eventually went back. And what, you may ask? He is still here, working upstairs, just two days after what just happened to him.
The shocked people’s silence
All four physicians appear to be sympathetic toward their young patients. The children’s suffering will be absorbed with them in their memories, and it is their pain that affects them most.
Dr. Almanaseer visits a young girl in intensive care while Al Jazeera is watching him go about his business. She is recovering from extensive burns to her body and face. She inquires to him in a quiet voice whether the burns will leave her with large scars.
The doctor takes her time to talk to her until she seems calmed down for the day.
Dr. Hijjawi is also making his rounds, speaking to a young girl, gently checking her leg, and urging her to “lift both feet off the bed for me.” Then he asks a young boy to wiggle his toes so he can monitor his progress.
A young girl is then lying alone in a room covered in recovery blankets. He’s there to watch her because her right arm has been bandaged.
He presses her finger, then moves her arm, and squats on the floor next to her bed. He tells a concerned relative that the problem will need to be surgically treated because she appears to have lost sensation in her two fingers.
The children are quiet, wide-eyed, and don’t say much more than they should.
Hijjawi claims that there is a lot to be dealt with. Being in a hospital is frightening, but many of them are simply waiting for a visit from a parent, grandparent, or sibling. Some of them are unaware of the identities of their loved ones outside the hospital.
Add that to their physical discomfort, he quietly says, “Yes, they are very quiet for very long periods of time, or their minds seem to wander.”
One memory of Gaza’s children that Dr. Rachdan appears to want to preserve as he prepares to leave is the sight of the children who continue to play despite the destruction.
Source: Aljazeera
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