FALCON POWERS – An American vascular surgeon who spent time as a volunteer in Gaza said he was not adequately prepared for the scale of injuries he encountered there.
Sharif Saeed, from Atlanta, Georgia, stated, “There are dozens of patients every day, most of them young, suffering from complex injuries caused by shrapnel, often resulting in limb amputations.”
He told Reuters, “Vascular surgeries are typically associated with diseases affecting elderly patients. I can say that I have never performed surgeries on anyone under the age of 16, and these were the majority of patients we dealt with this time. Most of them were between the ages of 13 and 17. They had wounds caused by shrapnel, and this was something I had never dealt with before. It was something new.”
During his time at the European Gaza Hospital, Saeed said his team dealt with between 40 and 60 patients daily, with the majority of cases involving amputations. He added, “Unfortunately, there is also a very high rate of infection transmission. So once an amputation is performed and it does not heal properly, it often leads to further amputations.”
Approximately 70 percent of the surgeries he performed were related to injuries caused by shrapnel, while the rest were mainly due to blast injuries and building collapses.
Ismail Mehr, an anesthesiologist from New York who led the Gaza mission, stated that the medical volunteers were “at a loss for words” upon reaching southern Gaza last month.
Mehr heads the Islamic Medical Association of North America, a program focused on medical relief in disaster situations and healthcare support. The program has provided treatment to over 2.5 million patients in 34 countries and continues to expand.
While Mehr had visited Gaza several times in the past, he said he could not imagine what he witnessed this time. He stated, “In fact, wherever I looked, there was destruction in Khan Yunis… There was not a single intact building.”
Among the 36 hospitals serving over two million residents, statistics from the World Health Organization indicate that only 10 were functioning to some extent by early April.
Mehr stated that healthcare facilities lack medical supplies, equipment, staff, and electricity. His biggest concern now is an anticipated Israeli attack on the southern city of Rafah, where half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has sought refuge.
He said, “I hope and pray that Rafah does not come under attack… The healthcare system will not be able to keep up with that. It will be a complete disaster.”
