UK surgeon treating patients in Gaza warzone says population ‘at its last limit'
Dr Tiziana Roggio, an Italian plastic surgeon based at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south London, first arrived in Gaza on May 12 alongside a team of four other London-based doctors.
Dr Roggio is volunteering for a month at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, tending to patients with blast injuries and burns with limited medical supplies.
Over recent days, strikes have pounded areas across Gaza and Israel has issued evacuation orders for Khan Younis.
Dr Roggio said Nasser hospital is just 1.5km (0.9 miles) away from the declared red zone and fears what will happen to patients if the hospital has to be evacuated.
'If this hospital shuts down, loads of patients will die because they won't have anywhere to go,' Dr Roggio told the PA news agency from the operating theatre in Nasser hospital.
'This is the biggest hospital in Khan Younis and has a large volume of patients, and has ICU facilities, oxygen generators, has got scans and operating rooms that can accommodate big surgical procedures like vascular surgery.
'If this hospital closes, the only hospitals remaining will be the tent hospitals.
'Although these hospitals are functional, they don't have facilities that can support ICU patients or complex surgical procedures.'
Dr Roggio, who travelled from London to Gaza with a humanitarian charity called International Disaster & Emergency Aid with Long-term Support (Ideals), said the situation in Gaza is much worse than she had anticipated.
'Its been quite shocking. I've been told that it's much worse now, because the population is really on its last limit,' she said.
'We have drones over our heads every day and it gets honestly unbearable sometimes, because it's really loud.
'It's really warm at the moment so you kind of want to keep the windows open and you can't, it gets really stressful.
'I can't keep track of time, because I don't even know what day it is.'
Dr Roggio described hearing 'massive blast noises' on Tuesday morning after an Israeli drone strike hit the area.
'Yesterday morning I guess that we were bombed early in the morning. We were sleeping at about 5.30am and the whole building shook,' she said.
'We heard this massive blast noise and we all went out and we had jets flying over our heads and dropping bombs in the area that is very near where we are.'
Dr Roggio, who has been working 12-hour shifts at Nasser hospital treating 10 to 12 people every day, described working with severely malnourished patients and having limited antibiotics.
'All the patients we treat are severely malnourished and this is a problem for us plastic surgeons, because all the wounds are not going to heal,' she said.
'If the patient is not on adequate nutrition, the infection rate is really high.'
She also described the challenges of working with limited antibiotics.
'They are essentially antibiotics that we give to our patients in the UK at the induction of surgical procedures,' she said.
'But here these antibiotics are used to treat severe infection, and these are all wounds that are highly contaminated because they are from blast injuries.
'We are treating things that in the UK would be absolutely healed in one week but here it's taking forever.'
Dr Roggio commended the resilience of local medical staff who have been operating in such severe circumstances for the last 18 months.
'I'm absolutely shocked to see how the local team is coping with this situation that has been going on for a very long time,' she said.
'Consider that they come every day from their accommodation, which means tents, where they had to live for the last few months.
'They have been forced to leave their houses and take their belongings.
'They don't lose energy. They come here every day. They're super polite. They even bring us presents and food, which is absolutely shocking, because they have literally nothing. They don't even have water.'
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.
Hamas is still holding 58 hostages, a third of whom are believed to still be alive.
In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Ideals JustGiving donations page can be found at: justgiving.com/ideals
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
North Wales Chronicle
5 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Assisted dying: UK doctor says helping patients die in Australia is ‘privilege'
Dr Emma Boulton, from Oxfordshire, spoke of the difference between her mother's 'horrible' decline over a period of weeks with respiratory failure in England and the 'very dignified' deaths she has been involved with in New South Wales. The 59-year-old, who trained and previously worked in the UK as a GP but is now based in Sydney, said her main role is assessing patients who have applied for an assisted death, but that she has been directly involved in ending the lives of 10 people. Known as intravenous practitioner administration, this involves injecting someone with an anaesthetic. In an interview with the PA news agency, she said: 'It's quick, it's painless, it's very dignified.' She added: 'When people go, there's often this palpable sense of relief, and it can be very uplifting, because you see this person who's deeply, deeply suffering in lots of ways, and they've made this really gutsy decision that they want to exit this world on their own terms, and they do so. 'And it's in a very dignified and quick and painless manner. 'It's a very moving thing to be involved with. I consider it a tremendous privilege to be involved in it and be able to assist people to determine their fate, particularly when they're going through intolerable suffering.' Dr Boulton recently took part in an event in Parliament to support campaigners from Humanists UK and My Death My Decision working towards a change in the law in England and Wales. Intravenous practitioner administration does not form part of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which is due to return to the House of Commons for debate and more votes on amendments on Friday. The Bill proposes that a terminally ill person would take an approved substance, provided by a doctor but administered only by the person themselves. The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. Speaking about the challenges of her role in New South Wales, Dr Boulton acknowledged that it is 'not work that's for everybody'. She said: 'You have to be pretty resilient and comfortable in your own skin and be able to work with these things. 'For me, personally, particularly for the first few (deaths) that I was involved with, I felt very strange. It's like, 'what have I done?' You know, I've spent my whole life prolonging life, and now in my hand, you know, somebody has died as a result of my actions. 'So it's quite an odd thing to have to deal with, but the way that I get around it is by knowing, understanding that I am alleviating suffering, and I'm acting on the patient's express wishes, and that really helps me through.' The Westminster Bill states that no person, including any medical workers, are obliged to take part in assisted dying, meaning doctors would be free to opt out if the law was changed and a service set up. Dr Boulton said her mother, Margaret, had endured a 'horrible feeling of slow suffocation' in the lead up to her death aged 88 in February last year, and that it had been a 'very frustrating' experience for the family, especially as her mother had voiced support for assisted dying. She said: 'When she knew that she was on the way out, that she was dying, she got very angry and said, 'I would really like to be able to just stop this now and just go'. 'What I witnessed with my mother is not that different from the suffering that I see in my assisted dying work. But the good thing is that if they meet the eligibility criteria in our assessment then the patients that I see (in Australia) can access the assisted dying process, whereas people in the UK can't.' Medics remains divided on the subject of assisted dying, with some MPs who are also doctors among the Bill's supporters, but the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) both airing concerns. The RCP said it believes there are 'concerning deficiencies' with the proposed legislation while the RCPsych said it has 'serious concerns' and cannot support the current Bill. Earlier this week, around 1,000 doctors signed a letter to MPs urging them to vote against a Bill they described as 'simply not safe'. The doctors, from across the NHS, urged lawmakers to listen to those 'who would have to deliver the consequences of this deeply flawed Bill', warning it 'poses a real threat to both patients and the medical workforce'. Dr Boulton said she believes much opposition to a change in the law is born from fear. 'I think objection is based in fear and I think a proper legislative framework would actually protect people and their practitioners,' she said. Many opponents of the Westminster Bill have raised concerns about people being coerced and the vulnerable being taken advantage of, but Dr Boulton said it is not a case of 'killing off granny'. She said: 'The patients I work with are incredibly calm. They're clear, they're very determined that this is a choice that they want to have. 'So, you know, people are worried about killing off granny because they want to get her money and that she's helpless and she can't make decisions for herself, and it's not like that at all. 'The process of assessment and making sure that people are fully aware and that this is an informed choice that they're making about their own life, having that really structured assessment framework actually protects people.'
Belfast Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Assisted dying: UK doctor says helping patients die in Australia is ‘privilege'
Dr Emma Boulton, from Oxfordshire, spoke of the difference between her mother's 'horrible' decline over a period of weeks with respiratory failure in England and the 'very dignified' deaths she has been involved with in New South Wales. The 59-year-old, who trained and previously worked in the UK as a GP but is now based in Sydney, said her main role is assessing patients who have applied for an assisted death, but that she has been directly involved in ending the lives of 10 people. Known as intravenous practitioner administration, this involves injecting someone with an anaesthetic. In an interview with the PA news agency, she said: 'It's quick, it's painless, it's very dignified.' She added: 'When people go, there's often this palpable sense of relief, and it can be very uplifting, because you see this person who's deeply, deeply suffering in lots of ways, and they've made this really gutsy decision that they want to exit this world on their own terms, and they do so. 'And it's in a very dignified and quick and painless manner. 'It's a very moving thing to be involved with. I consider it a tremendous privilege to be involved in it and be able to assist people to determine their fate, particularly when they're going through intolerable suffering.' Dr Boulton recently took part in an event in Parliament to support campaigners from Humanists UK and My Death My Decision working towards a change in the law in England and Wales. Intravenous practitioner administration does not form part of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which is due to return to the House of Commons for debate and more votes on amendments on Friday. The Bill proposes that a terminally ill person would take an approved substance, provided by a doctor but administered only by the person themselves. The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. Speaking about the challenges of her role in New South Wales, Dr Boulton acknowledged that it is 'not work that's for everybody'. She said: 'You have to be pretty resilient and comfortable in your own skin and be able to work with these things. 'For me, personally, particularly for the first few (deaths) that I was involved with, I felt very strange. It's like, 'what have I done?' You know, I've spent my whole life prolonging life, and now in my hand, you know, somebody has died as a result of my actions. 'So it's quite an odd thing to have to deal with, but the way that I get around it is by knowing, understanding that I am alleviating suffering, and I'm acting on the patient's express wishes, and that really helps me through.' The Westminster Bill states that no person, including any medical workers, are obliged to take part in assisted dying, meaning doctors would be free to opt out if the law was changed and a service set up. Dr Boulton said her mother, Margaret, had endured a 'horrible feeling of slow suffocation' in the lead up to her death aged 88 in February last year, and that it had been a 'very frustrating' experience for the family, especially as her mother had voiced support for assisted dying. She said: 'When she knew that she was on the way out, that she was dying, she got very angry and said, 'I would really like to be able to just stop this now and just go'. 'What I witnessed with my mother is not that different from the suffering that I see in my assisted dying work. But the good thing is that if they meet the eligibility criteria in our assessment then the patients that I see (in Australia) can access the assisted dying process, whereas people in the UK can't.' Medics remains divided on the subject of assisted dying, with some MPs who are also doctors among the Bill's supporters, but the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) both airing concerns. The RCP said it believes there are 'concerning deficiencies' with the proposed legislation while the RCPsych said it has 'serious concerns' and cannot support the current Bill. Earlier this week, around 1,000 doctors signed a letter to MPs urging them to vote against a Bill they described as 'simply not safe'. The doctors, from across the NHS, urged lawmakers to listen to those 'who would have to deliver the consequences of this deeply flawed Bill', warning it 'poses a real threat to both patients and the medical workforce'. Dr Boulton said she believes much opposition to a change in the law is born from fear. 'I think objection is based in fear and I think a proper legislative framework would actually protect people and their practitioners,' she said. Many opponents of the Westminster Bill have raised concerns about people being coerced and the vulnerable being taken advantage of, but Dr Boulton said it is not a case of 'killing off granny'. She said: 'The patients I work with are incredibly calm. They're clear, they're very determined that this is a choice that they want to have. 'So, you know, people are worried about killing off granny because they want to get her money and that she's helpless and she can't make decisions for herself, and it's not like that at all. 'The process of assessment and making sure that people are fully aware and that this is an informed choice that they're making about their own life, having that really structured assessment framework actually protects people.'
Glasgow Times
5 hours ago
- Glasgow Times
Assisted dying: UK doctor says helping patients die in Australia is ‘privilege'
Dr Emma Boulton, from Oxfordshire, spoke of the difference between her mother's 'horrible' decline over a period of weeks with respiratory failure in England and the 'very dignified' deaths she has been involved with in New South Wales. The 59-year-old, who trained and previously worked in the UK as a GP but is now based in Sydney, said her main role is assessing patients who have applied for an assisted death, but that she has been directly involved in ending the lives of 10 people. Known as intravenous practitioner administration, this involves injecting someone with an anaesthetic. In an interview with the PA news agency, she said: 'It's quick, it's painless, it's very dignified.' She added: 'When people go, there's often this palpable sense of relief, and it can be very uplifting, because you see this person who's deeply, deeply suffering in lots of ways, and they've made this really gutsy decision that they want to exit this world on their own terms, and they do so. 'And it's in a very dignified and quick and painless manner. 'It's a very moving thing to be involved with. I consider it a tremendous privilege to be involved in it and be able to assist people to determine their fate, particularly when they're going through intolerable suffering.' Dr Boulton recently took part in an event in Parliament to support campaigners from Humanists UK and My Death My Decision working towards a change in the law in England and Wales. Intravenous practitioner administration does not form part of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which is due to return to the House of Commons for debate and more votes on amendments on Friday. Dr Emma Boulton (right) with her sister Sarah (Humanists UK and MDMD/PA) The Bill proposes that a terminally ill person would take an approved substance, provided by a doctor but administered only by the person themselves. The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. Speaking about the challenges of her role in New South Wales, Dr Boulton acknowledged that it is 'not work that's for everybody'. She said: 'You have to be pretty resilient and comfortable in your own skin and be able to work with these things. 'For me, personally, particularly for the first few (deaths) that I was involved with, I felt very strange. It's like, 'what have I done?' You know, I've spent my whole life prolonging life, and now in my hand, you know, somebody has died as a result of my actions. 'So it's quite an odd thing to have to deal with, but the way that I get around it is by knowing, understanding that I am alleviating suffering, and I'm acting on the patient's express wishes, and that really helps me through.' The Royal College of Physicians has expressed concerns about the assisted dying Bill (Alamy/PA) The Westminster Bill states that no person, including any medical workers, are obliged to take part in assisted dying, meaning doctors would be free to opt out if the law was changed and a service set up. Dr Boulton said her mother, Margaret, had endured a 'horrible feeling of slow suffocation' in the lead up to her death aged 88 in February last year, and that it had been a 'very frustrating' experience for the family, especially as her mother had voiced support for assisted dying. She said: 'When she knew that she was on the way out, that she was dying, she got very angry and said, 'I would really like to be able to just stop this now and just go'. 'What I witnessed with my mother is not that different from the suffering that I see in my assisted dying work. But the good thing is that if they meet the eligibility criteria in our assessment then the patients that I see (in Australia) can access the assisted dying process, whereas people in the UK can't.' Medics remains divided on the subject of assisted dying, with some MPs who are also doctors among the Bill's supporters, but the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) both airing concerns. The RCP said it believes there are 'concerning deficiencies' with the proposed legislation while the RCPsych said it has 'serious concerns' and cannot support the current Bill. Earlier this week, around 1,000 doctors signed a letter to MPs urging them to vote against a Bill they described as 'simply not safe'. The doctors, from across the NHS, urged lawmakers to listen to those 'who would have to deliver the consequences of this deeply flawed Bill', warning it 'poses a real threat to both patients and the medical workforce'. Dr Boulton said she believes much opposition to a change in the law is born from fear. 'I think objection is based in fear and I think a proper legislative framework would actually protect people and their practitioners,' she said. Many opponents of the Westminster Bill have raised concerns about people being coerced and the vulnerable being taken advantage of, but Dr Boulton said it is not a case of 'killing off granny'. She said: 'The patients I work with are incredibly calm. They're clear, they're very determined that this is a choice that they want to have. 'So, you know, people are worried about killing off granny because they want to get her money and that she's helpless and she can't make decisions for herself, and it's not like that at all. 'The process of assessment and making sure that people are fully aware and that this is an informed choice that they're making about their own life, having that really structured assessment framework actually protects people.'
