I’ve been working day and night time at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza for greater than a month and a half, generally performing as much as 20 reconstructive surgical procedures a day. Removing lifeless tissue from burns. Performing pores and skin grafts. Handling stump closures for amputees. I’ve spent weeks sleeping in the hospital so no time is wasted—if I sleep in any respect.
Before the conflict, my spouse, our three kids, and I lived in the attractive Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. I labored at a small hospital run by Doctors Without Borders. But when Israeli airstrikes started in the wake of the Hamas assault on Oct. 7, Al-Rimal was turned to rubble. My household fled our residence on Oct. 10, shifting from place to position. An evening at my brother-in-law’s home. An evening at a UNRWA college serving as a makeshift shelter. Another night time at my brother-in-law’s. Then, on Oct. 23, we lastly fled south to Khan Younis.
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Gaza’s well being care system has virtually utterly collapsed on account of Israel’s ongoing bombardment. Hospitals and ambulances have been repeatedly attacked. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, greater than 250 medical staff have been killed up to now, together with two of my colleagues from Doctors Without Borders, who died whereas performing their duties in Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza. Of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, solely 11 are nonetheless functioning in any capability, based on the World Health Organization. Hospitals in the north like Al-Shifa are barely functioning in any respect, as fundamental medicines and gasoline have run out. My colleagues have been performing amputations by flashlight and with out anesthesia. When Israeli troopers raided Al-Shifa a couple of weeks in the past—a transfer the pinnacle of the WHO referred to as “totally unacceptable”—medical doctors and workers had been pressured to desert sufferers too sick or injured to evacuate. Some of those that refused to go away, together with the hospital’s director, had been arrested, alongside dozens of others. At Al-Nasr Children’s hospital, troopers ordered workers to go away the sufferers, together with 4 untimely infants who required oxygen, who had been later discovered lifeless.
At Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, we now have been inundated with injured sufferers, many instances our capability. Patients line the corridors. Many lie on the bottom as we wouldn’t have sufficient beds. Day after day, I’m introduced with sufferers who’ve main burns, extreme tissue loss, and uncovered bones. Our first and most vital aim is to avoid wasting lives. If attainable, we additionally save their limbs. In the final two months, I’ve carried out surgical procedures on dozens of amputees.
The hardest instances are the injured sufferers who had been in northern Gaza hospitals, the place I returned yesterday, to proceed my work at Al-Aqsa the place I’m most wanted. My colleagues at hospitals in the north have been working with out electrical energy, antibiotics, gauze, and even water. Patients with limbs that ought to have been saveable got here to us with superior gangrene and needed to be amputated. One affected person had burn wounds infested with worms. I see victims with burns that shouldn’t be life-threatening, but they’re in an irreversible septic situation. I strive as exhausting as I can for every affected person, figuring out they’ll seemingly die the following day of the physique’s cascading response to an infection.
Day blends into night time, which blurs into the following day. I’ve grown used to pushing via the exhaustion. Once or twice per week, whereas I used to be nonetheless in Khan Younis, I managed to go to the place my household was sheltering and spend an hour with my spouse and children earlier than returning to Nasser hospital. I attempt to name them daily, comforted to listen to they’re nonetheless alive. But it’s rising extra harrowing. On Dec. 2, a constructing about 300 ft. from them was hit by an airstrike, shattering their home windows. The subsequent day, the Israeli navy ordered folks from their neighborhood in town middle to flee. Communication providers had been reduce once more for hours and I didn’t know the place they had been, lastly studying later that day that they moved to a tent in what Israel is asking a “safe zone.” On Dec. 11, they fled as soon as once more to Rafah, additional south. But airstrikes proceed to kill folks in these so-called “safe zones.” I ache to be by their facet. But I’ve an obligation to my sufferers.
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The WHO has warned that there are “worrying signs of epidemic diseases” in Gaza, with just one rest room for each 150 folks and one bathe for each 700. Until now, hospitals in the south have been functioning, albeit at a breaking level. Supplies to Gaza’s hospitals had been partially replenished throughout the 7-day truce final month, however medical doctors are rationing gauze and different medical provides. I fear about my colleagues and sufferers nonetheless at Nasser hospital. It could also be days, it could be minutes, earlier than Israeli tanks encompass hospitals in southern Gaza.
I’m not involved about my destiny. My solely concern is that I will be unable to deal with my sufferers. What offers me power to proceed is the information that many individuals worldwide are working to cease the violence. We want them to proceed elevating their voices. And we want Western leaders like President Biden to insist on a everlasting ceasefire.
I pray the carnage will cease quickly. Until it does, I’ll go the place I’m wanted most, and proceed to serve my folks and to avoid wasting lives.
