By Josue Picazo. Bay City News.
Medical professionals from the University of California San Francisco Medical Center held a press conference calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
The conflict, which began on October 7 following Hamas attacks on Israel, has resulted in thousands of civilian casualties as the Israel Defense Forces continue retaliatory measures, including a blockade of Gaza.
Almost all speakers at the event called for an immediate ceasefire, explaining that the ongoing war is causing extreme difficulties in providing care to patients in Gaza, in addition to causing additional loss of life.
“It is a moral imperative for the global medical community to call for an immediate ceasefire and the protection of an already devastated healthcare infrastructure in Gaza,” said Dr. Jess Ghannam, clinical professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at the Faculty. of Medicine at UCSF. “Doctors and healthcare providers cannot provide care. Basic medical supplies are not arriving. “The devastation of healthcare infrastructure is happening at every level and in every sector of Gaza right now.”
The mental health aspects of war were also on the minds of doctors at the press conference, pointing out the toll it can take, especially on children.
“At the local level, anyone who experiences the risk of losing the lives of their loved ones will experience flashbacks of these bombs that they are experiencing,” said Dr. Amin Azzam, professor of psychiatry at the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, regarding The emotional problems that children face in proximity to war. “That has lasting trauma from childhood into adulthood, so you have difficulty forming healthy adult relationships as a result of the trauma you experience as a child, if you survive it.”
Dr. Leigh Kimberg of UCSF mentioned that lack of supplies and contaminated water will likely lead to cholera outbreaks.
“The situation is so desperate that people contact us when they have a moment to connect to the Internet with questions that have no solution, such as 'How is severe dehydration treated without water?'” he stressed.
“There are no words powerful enough to describe the magnitude of the courage and compassion of our Palestinian medical colleagues when they refuse to abandon their patients,” Kimberg said. “As a doctor, a mother, a person whose Jewish ancestors fled anti-Semitic violence and pogroms, and as a human being, I call on all doctors, healthcare workers, and healthcare institutions around the world to respond to this genocide with a firm and unwavering commitment to our sacred oath?
Kimberg also called for an immediate ceasefire and safe passage for medical and humanitarian aid.
Doctors at the press conference also highlighted the well-being of mothers and pregnant women.
“Women are forced to give birth without anesthesia,” said Dr. Nadia Elkarra, director of Clinical Research Operations at Stanford University. “If we do not intervene immediately, maternal and neonatal mortality rates are about to rise even further amid this humanitarian crisis. Today I am here as a voice for the lives we have the power to save.”
Rupa Mayra, co-founder of the Do No Harm coalition, which was one of the conference organizers, said her colleagues hear medical professionals in Gaza describe “clinical horrors.”
“Silence now is unacceptable complicity. Our doctors, nurses and healthcare colleagues in Gaza are under direct attack and are asking for our help,” Mayra explained.
You may be interested in: Threat of genocide to continue massacre in Gaza: Témoris Grecko
