Dr. Edward Chu was part of one of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams that went to Gaza last December to provide urgent medical support to the team of Palestinian MSF workers, who continue to receive a huge influx of seriously injured patients in a context where medical supplies are scarce and where shelling is constant.
This is his story about what he saw in Gaza.
Maryam*'s life changed completely when she was 11 years old. An explosion cost him both legs, one just below her hip and the other at knee level. When she arrived at the Indonesian hospital in Rafah with her mother and two sisters, who also suffered amputations and complex fractures, she was crying uncontrollably.
The four are among the 66,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have been injured to date in the war with Israel. many of whom face a harsh reality: after being discharged they will have to spend the recovery period in an improvised tent, consisting in many cases of just four sticks and a piece of plastic; at the mercy of the cold and the rain. In these conditions, their wounds are at enormous risk of becoming infected and the chances of them receiving the additional reconstructive surgeries they need are very slim.
(Also read: 'It could lead to a massacre': pressure grows on Israel to agree to a truce with Hamas)
Injured people are taken to the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
My mission in Gaza
In December I traveled to Gaza with a team from Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Our main objectives were two: to provide support to the emergency department and the operating room of the Nasser hospital, where we carried out interventions such as reconstructive plastic surgery and skin grafts, and finding a location that was further away from the front line where we could work safely. It was already clear that we were probably not going to be able to stay much longer in the Nasser Hospital.
(You may be interested in: The looming crisis in UNRWA due to the suspension of 51% of funds: this is how it affects Gaza)
The plastic surgeon on our team was only able to work there for two days before the Israeli army announced that it was going to start bombing the adjacent area. Our team of international workers had to withdraw at Christmas, although several Palestinian colleagues chose to continue caring for the sick and injured despite the risk to their own lives.
Just a month later, at the end of January, when I was already back, the hospital ended up being almost completely evacuated (**), leaving the Gazan population with practically nowhere else to continue receiving medical care.
![Loop](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/02/14/65ccb8f467b6b.jpeg)
Shelters for Palestinians displaced from Rafah in Deir Al Balah, southern Gaza Strip.
After this first frustrating stage, we focused on launching the Indonesian field hospital in Rafah and equipping our staff with trauma kits.
The high risk of shelling or being caught in the crossfire made it essential that all our staff, including drivers and other non-medical workers, acquired some basic life-saving skills, such as applying pressure bandages and using tourniquets.
(Also: Why the conflict in Gaza and the attacks in the Red Sea threaten the global economy?)
No other conflict is comparable to what is happening in Gaza
He had already worked with MSF in other conflict zones. I was, for example, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I also went to Ukraine, just after Russia escalated its invasion; in March 2022.
But what is happening in Gaza is a humanitarian emergency like I have never seen before: the enormous number of bombings; limitations in providing humanitarian medical aid due to indiscriminate attacks and the absolute lack of respect for the lives of medical staff and the integrity of healthcare facilities.
The intensity of the attacks throughout Gaza, which has an extension of only 12 kilometers at its widest point, together with the enormous population density in the Strip, turn the entire territory into a death trap from which no one can escape. escape. The area in km2 of Gaza is, to give us an idea, barely 365km2. The city of Madrid has 606.
The lack of medical supplies and equipment is also shocking and very difficult to manage. The emergency room at Nasser Hospital, which was overflowing with admitted patients, only had two trauma bays available for emergency cases and hardly any beds, so most patients had to be treated on the floor. Several of the machines used to monitor patients were not working or were missing parts necessary to function properly. And staff were forced to ration the few medications available.
(You can read: United States and the ICC, concerned about a possible Israeli offensive against Rafah in Gaza)
![Loop](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/02/14/65ccb96131257.jpeg)
A girl walks past the rubble of a building destroyed during an Israeli bombing in Rafah.
At the Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah, although we had a surgeon on our team, We did not have enough painkillers to numb and prevent infections, such as lidocaine, a local anesthetic used for dressing changes and smaller but essential procedures, such as removing dead or infected tissue. It is also the type of anesthesia used for a tooth extraction.
In fact, some of my colleagues working at other hospitals faced even worse situations, having to carry out urgent operations such as amputations without general anesthesia.
Hospitals are overflowing with the injured, but people with chronic health problems, cancer and other medical conditions continue to have the same needs they had before October 7, now aggravated by the situation in which they find themselves.
(Keep reading: The 6-year-old girl who died in Gaza begging for help for hours under Israeli attack)
![Loop](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/01/31/65ba6cc65e225.jpeg)
Several wounded are receiving treatment at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
For most of them, it is too dangerous to try to reach health centers and even if they could do so, it is very difficult to get medicines. they need, such as insulin for diabetes, medications for high blood pressure, or blood thinners for those hospitalized, so that they do not develop life-threatening blood clots.
When the bombing stopped during the brief humanitarian pause in November, hospitals received many patients who had suffered heart and brain attacks and diabetic emergencies. Many others died in the previous weeks without even being able to receive the medical care they needed.
And when fighting resumed on December 1, many more people with similar problems were again condemned to die in their homes, in the schools and buildings where they seek refuge, or in the fields where they try to stay safe. of the bombs.
The number of civilian victims of this war is chilling.
At the end of my mission, as we crossed the Rafah border crossing to return to Egypt, we saw a large number of Egyptian Red Crescent ambulances lined up, waiting to receive patients in need of evacuation. But they were all empty, because almost no one left there. We also saw hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid waiting to enter, but the reality is that only a few pass through each day, around 5 times less than those who entered before the Strip became the most terrible hell.
As the sound of the constant shelling became increasingly distant, it was difficult for me not to think about the Palestinians we were leaving behind; a beleaguered population that does not receive the humanitarian aid it so desperately needs.
The number of civilian victims of this war is chilling. But Gaza's Palestinians are not a statistic. We talk about one hundred, two hundred deaths a day, but people forget that these are mothers, children, fathers and workers, including my Palestinian colleagues at MSF, who continue to work while they watch their relatives die and while they suffer in silence before the such merciless level of devastation caused by bombings.
(In other news: Moving letter from a Colombian whose husband was kidnapped by Hamas)
![Loop](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/02/14/65ccb8920f80f.jpeg)
Palestinians carry the bodies of their relatives killed in the bombings.
My colleagues continued working every day without knowing if their relatives had died at that very moment, in one of the attacks that occurred at all hours. And every day we said goodbye to them, we did so knowing that there was a chance we wouldn't see them again the next day.
We cannot allow the tens of thousands of injuries and the almost 30,000 deaths caused by this offensive to be treated as simple numbers. They are all of them, children like Maryam and people like any of my classmates.
*Name changed to protect privacy** Most of the Nasser hospital staff have left the center due to the evacuation order by Israeli forces from surrounding areas on January 23, while others remain trapped inside due to heavy fighting around the center . To this day, MSF still has some workers there.
EDWARD CHU
EMERGENCY DOCTOR FROM DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
#39What #Gaza #surpasses #imagine39 #Doctor