00:00Let's bring in Dr. Diyar Rashdan, a senior consultant ophthalmologist at Sidra Medicine,
00:05recently volunteered at a Gaza hospital.
00:08Doc, thanks so much for joining us.
00:09Against that backdrop of severe hunger in a conflict zone,
00:15how were you able to do your job?
00:20Well, thank you very much, Sally, for having me on your program today.
00:23And yes, it wasn't easy at all.
00:26It wasn't an easy job seeing people who have been subject to 12 weeks now,
00:33almost 12 weeks of complete blockade, following a year and a half of war in Gaza,
00:39following 17 years of blockade on Gaza.
00:43It is very, very heartbreaking to see all of these children that are malnourished,
00:49all of these women and elderly.
00:52Just imagine how these could be.
00:54And, you know, with these figures that I've just highlighted,
00:58it is a real disaster that's going there, beyond the words,
01:02beyond what we can see on our TV screens.
01:06Seeing that with our real eyes is a completely different picture.
01:11As an ophthalmologist, obviously, I would imagine working on injuries, perhaps, to the eye.
01:17Just tell us a little bit more about exactly what you were doing there.
01:21So, mainly, it was dealing with injuries to the eye, as you quite rightly said,
01:27whether it is a fresh injury with foreign bodies inside the eye or around the eye,
01:32with a traumatic cataract as a result of the injury itself,
01:37or with cases that have been on the waiting list for a long, long, long time,
01:41waiting to be operated on.
01:43But because of the ongoing situation, they were not able to have their surgeries,
01:47let alone the situations of patients that have got multiple injuries,
01:53that are being operated on by different teams at the same time,
01:58and doing the most important, most urgent, most critical first,
02:02and moving down the, you know, down the scale,
02:05and whether it will reach ophthalmology case, it will reach the eye injury or not.
02:11And a simple example of that is a case that I was promised,
02:14or I was asked to go in and help and repair an eye injury,
02:19while they were having multiple other injuries.
02:22And unfortunately, that patient passed away on the theatre table
02:26before reaching the stage of me operating on him.
02:29Very, very traumatizing.
02:31You're dealing with patients who are also malnourished.
02:35How does hunger affect the healing?
02:38I'll give you a simple practical example for that.
02:41Going to the blood bank over there and talking to the staff,
02:47they are telling you that everybody who's got, you know,
02:50who's coming to donate blood,
02:52they will obviously have their hemoglobin tested
02:54to ensure that they are suitable and fit to give blood.
02:57None of the donors has got enough hemoglobin levels to donate.
03:04But yet, that's the only available, you know, blood donation.
03:08So they will come and donate,
03:09and they are hoping that they will give, you know,
03:12give some assistance to somebody that's badly injured.
03:15In terms of any major operation,
03:19the recovery depends and relies very seriously
03:23on how well-nourished the body is.
03:25So if we're talking about a seriously injured person
03:28or somebody who's got a major operation done to them,
03:32then in that case, if they are malnourished to start with,
03:36their recovery, the way and the ability,
03:38their immunity is dealing with any infection
03:41that comes, you know, through the door is very bad,
03:44and the survival will be much, much worse.
03:47Thank you so much for talking to us, Dr. Diyar Rushdan.
03:51He's a senior ophthalmologist who's recently been in Gaza.
03:53Thank you so much for participating in the fire of the fire of the fire of the fire of the fire of the fire of the fire.
03:57Thank you very much.
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