“This hospital is one of the oldest in Gaza. In fact, it is just south of the city,” he begins. TSF. It is a hospital that “It comes from the time of the British Mandate of Palestine. It is a hospital run by a religious non-governmental organization, in a high-density neighborhood. I know it from visiting it a few years ago, but I never worked there. But, in fact, we have hospitals affected. At this point, this is clearly a worst-case scenario.”
Surgeon Nelson Olim lived in Gaza for almost two years (between 2018 and 2019). “One day at a time, true stories from emergency and humanitarian medicine” is the name of the book he just published. The doctor and author also lived in Israel years ago, in 2001, when he completed a specialization in traumatology, at a renowned hospital in Haifa.
For this emergency medicine professional with deep knowledge of the field, a frightened population knowing that they are not safe even in a hospital is the end of any hope, it is despair:
“Regardless of where the shot came from, because this is almost a discussion that at this point is almost a club discussion, right? That is, that vision of the penalty seen from one side or seen from the other, the question is how can a population who is clearly on the run, who is afraid, who seeks refuge in what is supposed to be a sanctuary, which is the most sacred place in a war, we would say, which is a hospital, and yet he is beaten, this in fact eliminates all hope “, laments the surgeon, who graduated in medicine from the University of Lisbon, with extensive field experience in war scenarios.
For Olim, “This is destroying dignity, it’s driving people to desperation. I think that’s the big question: to think about what’s going through those people’s minds now, when they want to find a place that’s minimally safe, because they just want protect themselves and their families and because they think this war has nothing to do with them, they are still not safe.”
You can listen to the interview with Nelson Olim, in its entirety, on the program O Estado do Sítio, by Ricardo Alexandre, in TSFnext Saturday, starting at 12 noon.
Source: TSF
