I had intently adopted the genocidal battle 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 skilled nephrologist, a physician who treats sufferers with kidney illness, I felt there was a important 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 responsibility as a Muslim to assist the individuals of Gaza. Islam teaches us that whoever saves one life, it’s as if he had saved all of humanity; caring for others is an act of worship, and standing up towards injustice is an ethical obligation.
I imagine my levels should not meant to easily dangle 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 keep up the utmost respect for human life and to supply my medical information and compassion to these in want.
So on July 16, I departed for Gaza with just a few different medics.
We entered the strip by means of the Karem Abu Salem crossing. We went from observing the prosperity, consolation and wealth of the Israeli facet to recoiling on the destruction, devastation and distress of the Palestinian facet. We principally noticed what apartheid seems to be like.
On our brief journey by means of southern Gaza to achieve our vacation spot in Khan Younis, we noticed many buildings bombed, broken or destroyed. Properties, faculties, retailers, hospitals, mosques – you identify it.
The quantity of rubble was sickening. To today, I can’t unsee the landscapes of destruction I witnessed in Gaza.
We had been accommodated in Al-Nasser Hospital as a result of it was too harmful to remain at every other place. We had been welcomed and cared for a lot that I felt embarrassed. We had been seen as saviours.
I handled sufferers with kidney issues, labored as a main care doctor and generally helped throughout mass casualty occasions within the emergency room.
Dialysis requires clear water, sterile provides, dependable electrical energy, medicines and gear that should be maintained and changed – none of which was assured beneath 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 reality I struggled to simply accept, realizing that beneath regular circumstances, a lot of them might have been saved and lived regular lives.
I bear in mind the smiling face of one in every of my sufferers, Waleed, a younger man who suffered from kidney failure brought on by early-onset hypertension, a situation that, with entry to correct remedy, might have been managed appropriately.
Dialysis was Waleed’s lifeline, however he couldn’t get an satisfactory variety of periods because of the Israeli blockade inflicting extreme shortages of medical provides. Malnutrition and worsening residing circumstances solely accelerated his decline.
I bear in mind how in need of 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 at all times by his facet. A number of 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 had been dangerously low, and acid constructed as much as poisonous ranges. To handle his situation, he wanted fundamental medicines: potassium dietary supplements and sodium bicarbonate drugs.
These had 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 at all times repeated the phrase Alhamdulillah (reward be to God). He handed away just a few weeks in the past, I used to be informed.
Waleed and Hussein must be right here – smiling, laughing, residing fortunately with their households. As an alternative, they grew to become casualties of siege and silence. These are two of so many tragic tales I do know of and I witnessed. So many lovely lives that might have been saved had 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 means. They don’t seem to be solely battling the each day struggles of life like all different Palestinians in Gaza but in addition witnessing each day horrors of headless infants, amputated limbs, absolutely burned human beings and generally the lifeless stays of their very own family members.
Think about working with no anaesthesia, restricted ache medicines, 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 reduction.
Nonetheless these healthcare heroes simply hold going.
One of many nurses I labored with, Arafat, made a deep impression on me. He was residing in a makeshift shelter with a number of members of the family. It provided 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) every single day to work with worn-out sandals, going through the hazard of Israeli drones bombing or taking pictures 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 gentle humour.
I felt so small subsequent to heroes like Arafat. His and his colleagues’ resilience and persistence had 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 important 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 loss of life 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 study life from the resilient individuals of Gaza. Their relentless braveness and willpower will stick with me till I die.
Regardless of witnessing what I might have by no means imagined, I didn’t have the urge to go away. I wished to remain. Again in america, 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 not perceive the rising variety of people who find themselves accustomed to the each day experiences of Palestinian deaths and pictures of torn our bodies and ravenous kids.
As human beings and as well being staff, we can not give up on Gaza. We can not 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 direct 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 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 facet!
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
