An exclusive interview with an Australian surgeon, Dr Bushra Othman, who went on a medical mission to Gaza in the middle of the Israel-Gaza war. She describes what she went through in Gaza as 'unfathomable' and says the enclave's healthcare system is hanging on by a thread.
Australian surgeon Bushra Othman was holding back tears trying to describe her time as a volunteer at the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza.She recently returned home to Melbourne, after an "unfathomable" three-week medical mission at the hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
The war began after a Hamas-led attack inside Israel on October 7, by militants who killed 1,200 people, and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. Dr Othman said morphine was almost "non-existent" so some patients would awake from major surgeries screaming in pain, without relief.Dr Othman said she treated young children who were already "psychologically" damaged."You spend hours in the emergency department with the lights, the electricity turning off, no fans, no air conditioning."
"I did a major abdominal operation with no energy device in a room that was tiny ... that the lights went off multiple times at night ... people pulling out their telephone lights to shine it to the patient's abdomen so that we could operate," she said.There would often be no water, forcing Dr Othman and other doctors to use "alcohol sanitisation liquid" before scrubbing in.
Out of 11 field hospitals in the Gaza Strip, three have had to temporarily shut down and four are only partially functioning, “due to the hostilities in Rafah and reduced access”, WHO said.
First Female Surgeon Returns From Gaza Gaza Doctor Women In Gaza Women Ptsd War Trauma Palestine Health Care System Bombs Surgery
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