Looking for Trouble

Guest blog by Gerri Haynes: Delegates put expertise to good use in besieged Gaza

As she did last year, Gerri has organized a Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility delegation of doctors and other health care providers to work in hospitals and clinics in Gaza in an effort to directly help the people there and to bring attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis that the Israeli blockade has created. She will be sending back reports from inside the Israeli blockade.



Members of our delegation continue to work in their areas of experience.

Howard Putter has been working with other orthopedic surgeons at Al Shifa Hospital. He has seen traffic trauma (the traffic in Gaza is the stuff of legend – there are no traffic lights for the heavy car and cart traffic and children play in and around the streets) and old war injuries. Attending orthopedists and a resident staff provide care – equipment and supplies are needed, but difficult to get during these years of siege.

David Hall taught an enthusiastically-received class on psychotherapy for psychologists, nurses and social workers this morning at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme Center http://www.gcmhp.net/. Working through a series of translators, the discussion was spirited.

The level of psychological trauma here makes care giving complicated. Traumatized professionals have to find ways to care for themselves so that they may continue to provide care – this is true in every medical discipline.

We are making some visits with GCMHP staff to private homes.

Today, we visited some members of a family of 16 who live on the fourth floor of a small concrete building – sleeping quarters are under an open tin roof, while the protected living happens in a space about 12×10.

The father of the family – which is composed of brothers and nieces and nephews as well as the wife and children of this father – is a fisherman. He tells us that the only fish in the waters they are permitted to fish (deep water fishing is prohibited by Israel) are very small and the water is sewage-polluted.

He has no income. The family receives food aid in the form of dry staples every three months from UNRWA http://www.unrwa.org/.

Their life is desperate. Still, the children gather and smile their beautiful smiles. Everywhere we go, people express gratitude that people from the United States have not forgotten them.