Looking for Trouble

‘Consider Gaza and the realities of life’, by Gerri Haynes

Surgeons Grant O’Keefe and Clyde Farris operated through the day at Al Shifa Hospital and several members of our group consulted and taught classes at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme Clinic. A good day of work!

This morning, several of us visited the Qatar-funded rehabilitation hospital being constructed near the Mediterranean Sea. The top floor of this hospital will serve hearing-impaired individuals, including those with cochlear implants. The lower floors will serve people with amputations and orthopedic rehabilitation needs.

We had visited the existing Cochlear Implant Center in previous visits and learned that the new hospital will provide improved testing and training facilities. Funding ongoing operations has been and remains a challenge for this center and attempts are being made to find partners who will help with the costs of services and staffing. With the economy of Gaza in critical need, the present reality of work without pay in many sectors continues.

Today, also, we were treated to the first day (after vacation) of school celebration at the Palestine Avenir Association for Children. Children with cerebral palsy are served here in a most loving environment!

Center Director Ahmed Al Kashif led us through the building, greeted at every turn by staff and children, who were obviously delighted by his presence. Testing, needed therapies and academic instruction are offered at this Center.

In the play yard, merry-go-rounds and swings accommodate children in wheel chairs. A new roof structure, complete with solar panels (funded by the Czech Republic) will soon offer full electrical energy for the building. At the end of our tour, we joined the children for their musical celebration – dancing with children who have all levels of difficult movement related to cerebral palsy – including children in wheel chairs – each one smiling and offering to help us enjoy the dance!

The stories we are hearing in our work and in nearly every encounter with Gaza residents reflect the extreme difficulties of life under siege and under the ongoing threat of another attack: unemployment, hunger, very limited electricity, highly polluted water, increasing domestic disputes, depression, school problems.

Life is deeply challenging in this imprisoned land. Yet again and again, we are amazed and inspired by the creativity, dedication to helping one another and amazing coping skills of the people here.

We invite the world to consider Gaza and the realities of life here.

(Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility has traveled to Gaza since 1993. Since 2009, following the Cast Lead invasion by Israel, WPSR has sponsored ten medical delegations to serve the people of Gaza.)