Shining a light on the health care crisis in Gaza

IPPNW Board chair Dr Ruth Mitchell recently returned from two weeks in Gaza, supporting patients with critical and complex injuries at two hospitals, Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the middle of Gaza, and al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. She was interviewed by Croakey Health Media, an Australian not-for-profit public interest journalism organization.

“I wanted to make sure,” Dr. Mitchell said of her decision to go, “that solidarity and connection were the focus and that at every turn, I was acknowledging, witnessing, and celebrating the strength and resiliency of the Palestinians, of Palestinian doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals, of the patients, of their families. These people who have been so maligned, I wanted to shine a light on them and celebrate and acknowledge and witness them….

“[W]hat’s available is not at all adequate for the enormous task of looking after a traumatised and injured population, perhaps more than half of whom are still displaced. Upwards of a million people in Gaza are still living in a tent. And their health needs are more complex than they would be if they hadn’t had to be displaced so very many times in the last two and a half years.

Read the full interview here.