17 hours ago
Doctor's plea to Irish Government to help get mobile children's hospital into Gaza
A BRITISH-AUSTRALIAN doctor who has recently spent time working in Gaza is appealing to the Irish government to help lead the charge to get mobile hospitals into the besieged territory.
Dr Mohammad Mustafa was invited to present to TDs, Senators, and their staff today in Leinster House by Independent Senator Lynn Ruane.
Dr Mo, as he is known, told Oireachtas members of the sheer horror he witnessed during his time working in Gaza.
The emergency medical doctor volunteered with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association at al-Ahli Arab hospital, also known as the Baptist hospital.
He explained how this hospital was never supposed to be relied on as a main hospital, but now it is the epicentre of healthcare in Gaza City, catering to almost a million people.
'The emergency room is 15m long and about 5m wide…That would be a corridor that should fit eight beds but we would have to fit 150 people on the floor.'
The situation is so dire that while Dr Mo was working there, he was the only doctor with a thermometer.
Five days after he left Gaza, Israel
bombed the hospital
, destroying the emergency room.
'It was the only emergency department that was functioning in the whole of Gaza City. With their own bare hands, they managed to clear the rubble and have put a tent in its place.
'The healthcare system is going to turn into tents. And it's not hygienic, it's not sterile. The worry is that as more and more of the healthcare system gets eroded, that's all that will be left, and more and more people will die,' Dr Mo said.
Thirty-six of Gaza's 38 hospitals have been destroyed.
Since leaving Gaza, Dr Mo has been campaigning across the globe to get governments to back plans to get mobile hospitals into Gaza.
The mobile hospitals are refurbished solar-powered modular buildings with operating theatres, a pharmacy, a cafeteria and a kitchen. In particular, Dr Mo is campaigning to get a 100-bed children's hospital in as well as a maternity and neonatal hospital.
'Once this hospital gets driven into Gaza, it's assembled like a jigsaw puzzle and you have this semi-permanent structure that's air-conditioned, fully equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment. With running sewage, running water, self-sufficient,' Dr Mo explained.
The aid project is being led by an organisation called Pious Projects and would operate in coordination with the UN, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and the Gaza Health Cluster.
But what Dr Mo is pushing for is backing from governments internationally to help get the mobile hospitals' entry into Gaza. He said governmental support is needed to give the project legitimacy at a time when NGO [Non-governmental organisation] workers are being killed in Gaza.
'This is the way that we need to start thinking about doing healthcare, we need to start bringing hospitals into Gaza. We can't just bring in pocket ultrasounds with whichever doctors come in, and a stethoscope and a thermometer. We need to bring the whole hospital in,' he said.
'We've got the infrastructure in place in Jordan to do this. We have got the willingness of the Jordanian government to help with this. And we already have a maternity and neonatal hospital ready to go.
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'And when we bring in these hospitals, we bring in a whole team of doctors, nurses. It's fully equipped.'
Dr Mo explained that he has travelled to Ireland to get as much support as possible.
'This needs to be a government-led initiative. It cannot be an NGO initiative.
'With NGOs, NGOs get bombed.
'NGOs don't have the leverage to break the siege, but governments do.
'Even the UN doesn't, because the UN has almost been outplayed and pushed aside by the US and Israel. And their legitimacy has been eroded away. This is a way we can get legitimacy back into the systems in Gaza,' he said.
Dr Mo said the project would be done with the support of UN agencies but that it needs the oversight from international governments who are willing to help run and oversee the security and logistics.
'We're not asking for funding because I understand that could be contentious, but what we are trying to do is take away all the variables. The maternity hospital is already in Jordan, ready to go in. We just need help to get it in.
'The next project that we have is a pediatric hospital, which will be a similar set up to this. And that's the hospital that we want all governments to get involved in.
'We already have the blueprint in place and we're at the end stages of securing funding.
'What we need right is the legitimacy, and the oversight, and the political leverage of governments to get involved.'
Healthcare workers
Speaking about his experience in Gaza, Dr Mo said the healthcare workers on the ground are exhausted.
'When I was there the last time, over half the workers had jaundice because they had hepatitis A from dirty drinking water.
'Most of these healthcare workers were living in tents because their homes had been destroyed, so they would leave their tents to come to work and do a full 24-hour shift.
'Sometimes, while some of these healthcare workers were working, their entire families were killed. They are working under the most stressful conditions.'
Dr Mo argued that healthcare workers in Gaza need more support.
'They have been carrying a load for the last two years that is unbearable.
'I was there for over a month and I was exhausted. I can only imagine what it is like to do that for two years, not having a warm bed to go home to, not knowing if your kids are going to be safe when you go to work, walking through demilitarised zones to get to work where you could be shot at, this is a way to help them as well.
'This is a way we can help those heroes in Gaza by giving them a hospital and allowing them to rest while we pick up some of the load.'
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Tánaiste Simon Harris have been contacted for comment.
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