“It is urgent and essential to take a stand on the humanitarian crisis that has worsened in Gaza since October 7.” This is how the Open Letter from Health Professionals for Palestine begins, addressed to the seven leaders of professional orders in the field of Health, from doctors to nutritionists.
The goal, as one of the proponents of this letter, doctor André Almeida, explained to DN, is to “demand, as professionals from different areas of healthcare, a position that contributes to international pressure for an immediate ceasefire” fire”.
The doctor explains that the document, which already has more than 800 signatures, emerged from a discussion among a group of doctors, which quickly expanded to include other health professionals, such as nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, etc., who decided to further with an open letter as a form of warning and protest, because the Portuguese professional bodies have not yet expressed an opinion on the conditions under which professionals and care are provided in Gaza.
The letter refers to World Health Organization data showing that at the time of writing the letter, the State of Israel has already attacked 164 medical infrastructures, killing 220 healthcare workers in Gaza (4.5).
“About 70% of health centers and 26 out of 35 hospitals are currently out of service due to the destruction of infrastructure, insecurity, lack of fuel, electricity, water, food and medicine,” the text said, highlighting that “health workers work in appalling conditions, improvising solutions due to lack of resources, such as performing amputations, caesarean sections or other operations without anesthesia, battling exhaustion and despair on a daily basis.”
In addition, “due to the lack of access to minimum sanitary conditions, an increase in the transmission of infectious diseases is expected, corresponding to a public health emergency.”
These professionals emphasize that “the protection of hospitals and healthcare professionals in armed conflict is explicitly guaranteed under international humanitarian law. Deliberately attacking hospitals is a war crime perfectly defined in international law. This tactic has already been internationally denounced and condemned in other recent contexts. .”
The professionals signing this letter declare that “they will not tolerate silence or support war crimes that slaughter and collectively punish the entire population of Gaza, and that we will not remain inert in the face of violence and the deliberate murder of professional colleagues and the destruction of hospitals. ” Therefore, and in solidarity with colleagues in Gaza who continue to serve the population in terrible conditions, they invite the Professional Health Orders in Portugal to join a common demand against violence and against systematic attacks on hospitals.
FNAM stands in solidarity with all doctors who work in war zones
The National Federation of Doctors (FNAM) also released a statement saying that “no one should remain indifferent, and not us doctors, to the generalization of military conflicts around the world,” which “trivializes human suffering and worse , it normalizes the idea that medical and hospital grounds can be used as a theater for war.”
In this sense, this union structure stands in solidarity with “all doctors working in war zones and we call for a ceasefire. Mariupol and Gaza, in Ukraine and Palestine, are the most recent cases, but in the short life of the 21st century we have already witnessed the brutality of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Georgia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Niger, Azerbaijan, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Pakistan and Ethiopia. If I were to do the same about the 20th century, this list would be painful and endless,” he said in the statement.
And he ends by saying that “the FNAM, part of a humanist trade union organization, rejects the events, adds its voice to the many doctors around the world who have condemned the war and called for a ceasefire, and stands in solidarity with their colleagues who, even though they are targets, continue to do their work in unimaginable circumstances.”
Source: DN
