In the Nasser medical complex in Khan Younis of Gaza, a volunteer doctor breaks down while he talks about the things he saw during his mission here.
It is impossible to overcome the scenes of hungry, shocked and injured children, says the thoracic surgeon Ehab Massad.
“The sight of a child standing at the door, disconcerted because he lost his whole family in a bombardment, I could never forget that, never,” he added in a flickering voice while tears fill his eyes.
‘It will never want to sufficiently’
Massad is a member of a medical mission by the Rahma Worldwide organization, one of the four doctors working in Qatar to join.
“I have the impression that no matter what we do (the inhabitants of Gaza), that will never want to sufficiently,” he says.
“(However) the helpless feeling of being outside Gaza and looking at the news has disappeared now; At least I feel like I am doing my part. ”
It is a feeling summarized by the other three doctors to whom Tel Aviv Tribune spoke. The anas Hijjawi orthopedic surgeon described a long line of doctors who had registered with medical missions in Gaza, some of whom had to wait up to five months for a place on a mission to open.
Dr. Diyaa Rachdan, an ophthalmic surgeon, finds it difficult to keep his voice stable when he told Tel Aviv Tribune that Tuesday was the last day of the mission and that doctors would return to their respective hospitals the next day.
“But I hope there will be more longer trips to Gaza in the future,” he adds.
Their work in Gaza is not easy, but that is not the reason why these doctors are sad to leave their mission. On the contrary, every day is a struggle because they try to face a volume of deaths, illnesses and injuries, they simply do not have the equipment to be resolved.
Israel often prevented the entry of hospital supplies in Gaza during his war of almost 19 months against the besieged enclave. Medical missions are not allowed to bring anything with them.
Thus, doctors have trouble with the equipment they can find, sometimes reusing “disposable” medical tools again and again, despite the danger that poses, because there is simply no other choice, says Dr. Rachdan.
At the back of their minds, several doctors say to Tel Aviv Tribune, is always the thought that the people of Gaza die of injuries and illnesses that would be easily treated in any other hospital which has adequate supplies.
“Sometimes we cannot cover a patient or take precautions to preserve the sterility of an operating room,” said Dr. Hijjawi.
“Sometimes I don’t have metal plates or the right size screws I need to repair a member. I had to use the bad size item … just to improve them enough so that they can one day travel for more treatment. ”
Things that happen to people at war
While the doctors who enter Gaza often followed the developments there before their arrival, nothing, they say in Tel Aviv Tribune, could have prepared them in terms of destruction that the inhabitants of Gaza have to face.
“Words cannot describe the pain that people are here, or the level of exhaustion of medical teams. They have been working almost 24 hours a day for a year and a half now, despite their own pain and personal tragedies, “said the fourth Qatar volunteer, urology consultant Mohammad Almanaseer.
There is a tent of tension in the voice of Dr. Almanaseer while he talks about the case which had a most deep impact, the story of a little boy of about two years who was brought to the emergency room after Israel had bombed him as well as his family.
“The usual resuscitation attempts were made with him, but he needed an immediate operation. I was in the operating room, helping the pediatric surgeon, but it has become clear to us that the child would probably not survive. ”
The child died the next morning.
“He was the same age as my son, and even had the same name. Kinan, little Kinan, may God receive you, you and your mother, who was killed in the same bombardment, by his side. “
Wounds as extreme and urgent as Kinan are what medical teams treat day after day, which leads to a large band of patients who need less urgent care and who continue to grow on the list.
As patients who have been waiting for months or years for cataract surgery, some of which were helped by Dr Rachdan during this mission.
The inhabitants of Gaza were forced to continue throughout the genocidal war against their existence. This force inspired a sort of disconcerted respect among visiting doctors.
Dr. Hijjawi recounts an afternoon conversation with an operating room nurse who explained how he has trouble going to work every day and how he said a last farewell to his wife and children every day, because he never knows what can happen to any of them.
“Then we heard ambulances enter,” continues Dr. Hijjawi, “and we went to the emergency room. Suddenly, the nurse came before us, desperately asking an ambulance to go to his house with him because he had heard that it had been bombed.
“It took some time … but they finally went out and returned with his parents, who had been killed, and the rest of his family, who had injuries among them. And, what do you know? Only two days after it has happened to him, he is here, he works upstairs. ”
The silence of the shocked
The four doctors seem to have a weakness for their pediatric patients. It is the pain of children who affect them the most, and it is their suffering that they will take them in their memories.
Tel Aviv Tribune follows Dr. Almanaseer during his tours as he visits a young girl in intensive care. She recalls serious burns on a large part of her face and her body. In calm tones, she asks him if she will find herself with large scars from burns.
The doctor answers him quietly and seriously, taking the time to speak to him until he seems to be reassured for today.
Dr. Hijjawi is also on his tours, speaking to a little girl, slowly examining her leg and asking her to “lift the two feet of the bed for me”. Then he asks a little boy to move his toes so that he can check how he heals.
Then comes a young girl lying under a recovery blanket in a single room. His right arm is bandaged, that’s what he’s there to look.
He crouches on the floor near his bed and moves his arm, then each of his fingers. He is worried because she seems to have lost her sensation on the two fingers and believes that the problem should be explored surgically, as he tells a worried parent.
The children are calm, with a wide eyes, do as they are told and did not say much else.
“There are so many things with which they are dealing with,” says Hijjawi. “Being in the hospital is frightening, but in addition to that, many of them are just lying there while waiting, hoping that someone visits them – a parent or a grandparent or a brother or sister. Some of them do not know who left for their family outside the walls of the hospital.
“Add all this to their physical pain, yes, they are very silent for very long periods, or their mind seems to wander,” he said quietly.
Dr. Rachdan is quickly due to a memory of the children of Gaza that he seems to want to preserve when he is preparing to leave: “One thing that I do not think that I will never forget, it is the sight of the children of Gaza who continue to play, despite the destruction.
“They make paper planes, play ball, despite the tragedy they are surrounded by. I will always remember it. ”
