Looking for Trouble

Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility cardiologist makes the rounds with doctors in Gaza

As she did last year, Gerri Haynes 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.

Today’s Blog was written by Bob Haynes who is seeing cardiac patients in Gaza

Cardiac Care rounds at Al Shifa Hospital, the largest (500 beds) Palestinian hospital in the West Bank and Gaza, are similar to those at any U.S. teaching hospital. Sleep-deprived interns present a patient’s history to an entourage of medical students and quizzing professors. The interns respond correctly with answers directly from the Mayo Handbook of Cardiology.

I can participate in this part of rounds because all medical presentations are in English. When a point of contention arises, the discussions are held in Arabic. A poignant part of this exercise is that some of the treatments suggested by the “correct” answers are not available in Gaza.

There is a concrete wall 10 meters high around the land border between Gaza and Israel and a sea embargo enforced by the Israeli navy. Goods not allowed into Gaza by Israel an Egypt include a list of essential medical items.

One decade ago in the U.S., care for an individual experiencing a heart attack changed from dissolving heart vessel clots with medicines to opening clogged arteries with tiny balloons on catheters. Balloon technology for heart attacks is not available in Gaza. These interns are very well versed in the use of the clot-dissolving technique. Their knowledge of this methodology is elegant and complete. These interns are sharp – their knowledge is 2010, but due to available technology, their practice is limited to 1990s.

Today, as I exited the front gate of the hospital, the Call to Prayer issued forth from a speaker mounted on a large tent across a busy street. The tent is a temporary mosque, erected on the site of the Al Shifa Mosque – which was destroyed by bombs from Israeli planes during Operation Cast Lead – 17 months ago. As we listened to the Call, the intern who accompanied me commented that a male nurse had died in the bombing on the exact spot where we stood listening.

Heroes and Families

Many physicians from Gaza leave to train abroad and are not allowed to re-enter Gaza for the six or more years of their training. Some remain abroad. Some heroes choose to return to Gaza to serve the population at home. Family membership provides a sense of meaning and purpose and belonging.

Families are identified with specific areas of Gaza. There are virtually no street names or addresses in this densely populated region. Seeking to find a specific home, the seeker questions local people about a “family” and is directed – or taken – to the correct home. Trust between a doctor and patient is established by identification of family.

Family relationships are deeply respected. A nephew assists his uncle through the clinic bureaucracy. Sons help their mother from her wheelchair to the exam table. Beyond the concern and responsibility all of us might have for our family members, there is an intimate caring and great honoring for the privilege of serving a family member – sandals are removed for the relative, canes are held, dressing and undressing for an examination are completed with quiet tenderness. Nursing homes for adults with living relatives do not exist here. Nearly everyone belongs somewhere to a family.

Despite layers of politics and the suffocating siege, the people of Gaza persevere and even thrive in their own ways on their land in their families.