“We came to know a lot of children who would come in every few days to have their dressings changed. Though healing quickly, as children do, being repeatedly reminded of their suffering was difficult, knowing that limbs won’t regrow, and parents won’t come back. Yet, somehow, they kept smiling.” Dr. Matthew Newport recently returned from Gaza, where he was part of a UK-Med surgical team supporting one of the remaining hospitals in Gaza.
The Consultant in Anaesthetics and Prehospital Emergency Medicine, who usually works at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and North West Air Ambulance, shares his harrowing account of working at Al Aqsa Hospital.
We got over the Rafah crossing as the sun went down and quickly travelled through a large area of makeshift tents. Driving just as darkness fell somehow amplified the initial exposure to the sheer volume of people packed into such a small area. Illuminated by the headlights, burning wood as fuel for cooking and heat, bolstering tarpaulin shelters as best they could – families were preparing for yet another cold and uncertain night. The reality of Gaza was immediately apparent.
It was a silent drive from that point until we got to the guesthouse.
We were the second UK-Med surgical team to enter Gaza. We had an introductory briefing with the Team Lead and Medical Coordinator, where they explained we would be treading new ground by providing surgical support for Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah; one of the few hospitals still functioning in Gaza. I thought, ‘We’ll just get in, stay safe and figure out what we can best do to help.’
The next morning, after being woken up by the sound of gunfire and explosions, we drove up the coastal road to Al Aqsa Hospital. We made sure that alongside our surgical scrubs and clogs, our grab bags were double-checked: plenty of water, a head torch, batteries, and a couple of days’ worth of rations stowed in the bottom in case we’d be unable to travel back safely.
We were ready to hit the ground running.
Anaesthetising newborns: the toll on Gaza’s children
We worked at Al Aqsa Hospital six days a week, undertaking around 20 procedures every day. It was a conveyor belt, though each patient had their own story. Cases ranged from major chest, abdominal and limb trauma to more routine wound debridements and changing burn dressings.
As the team’s anaesthetist, this variety kept me on my toes but was also hugely rewarding. I might spend the morning supervising and supporting Gazan anaesthetic technicians providing sedation and pain relief for minor procedures and then have the afternoon consumed with an emergency case requiring resuscitation and anaesthesia after an explosive injury. Although we saw a steady number of gunshot wounds, the vast majority, I’d say 90 per cent, were injuries caused by explosions and fragmentation.
It was the huge number of wounded children and women that left a real impact on me, right down to babies just a day or two old and weighing just a couple of kilograms. As a first-time father of a two-year-old, seeing displaced, frightened, parentless, and traumatically injured children was quite challenging.
One young boy who will remain with me had injuries to his whole body that you simply don’t see in the UK. He was perhaps eight years old. In parallel his abdomen was opened, and his injured bowel repaired, whilst his right leg was amputated at the hip along with his left arm at the elbow. Despite our best efforts, the impact of his injuries took its toll on his young and entirely innocent body, and he died in theatre.
We stood around him – me and one of the local health staff – in a moment of quiet reflection. Then they wrapped him in white cloth and took him out to his family.
It's hard seeing children have their primary caregivers killed and lose an arm or both legs. Their ability to be productive and happy in post-war society, through absolutely no fault of their own, is hamstrung from the beginning.
At the time of publishing, more than 12,000 children have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health in figures that have been quoted by the UN.
Exhausted but resilient local health staff
It was phenomenal how quickly the local staff at Al Aqsa Hospital welcomed us in. It’s a testament to their hospitality, especially as hospitals in Gaza have been running well beyond capacity for months by the time we arrived. They were coming down to the hospital each morning, often via donkey and cart from the displacement camps, completely undeterred by their hardships. Their resilience was astounding.
If UK-Med weren’t there, without a doubt, the local staff would keep providing the best standard of medical care possible in the circumstances. As UK-Med clinicians, we’re there to support local staff, to occasionally advise when requested but more than anything to roll up our proverbial sleeves and shoulder some of the burden.
But there is still huge value in being able to stand in solidarity with the hospital staff, recognising that they're exhausted and have been working day in and day out for months.
It’s important to show them – with actions and not just words – that we care and that we want to help. It helps them stand a little bit taller, knowing that people are coming to help for the long haul.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 12 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning.
Pressing pause on the cassette player
Towards the end of my four weeks in Gaza, the team was in its final preparations to receive the field hospital UK-Med was sending, adding to a site near Rafah that UK-Med had been busy developing in the weeks prior. It’s a facility that can provide care for at least a hundred people per day but in reality, that figure will probably be much, much higher.
The team has begun providing mobile health clinics as well, which have already treated hundreds of patients, around half of them children. Overall, we’ve seen well over 2,000 patients. The work will keep scaling up, and although I’m back in the UK now, I’ve already pre-positioned to go back to Gaza after a few weeks back home.
Knowing that I’m going back makes me feel a little like I’ve pressed pause on the cassette player. A ‘pause’ to catch up with family, see friends, return to some NHS duties and then ‘press play’ again and be back in Gaza. Personally, this has been the most challenging overseas work I’ve been involved in, but am sincerely looking forward to getting back to it.
To support and expand our medical work, we have launched our Gaza Health Crisis Appeal. Please consider donating today.
