As a physician, I remember the primary time I saw a toddler die.
She was within the pediatric intensive care unit, brought along along with her family from a distant First Nations community. Intubated and sedated to take care of the blisters covering her small body, three of her 4 limbs were amputated – the results of a terrible meningococcal infection.
I remember standing rooted to the bottom, unable to go away her bed and wanting greater than anything to ease her suffering. This was long before I became involved in academic medicine as head of the Department of Indigenous Health for the Department of Family and Environmental Medicine on the University of Toronto, nevertheless it profoundly shaped my understanding of suffering and the fragility of life.
I used to be a medical student and did not have the magic cure, but I needed to be near her so she would not be alone. I remember every part about those moments, from the rhythm of her respiratory to the stillness of her body.
All over the world, health care staff are trained to be observers and examine intimately the people before us, closely monitoring life and death. We testify with the required objectivity, documenting and responding specifically. We experience extremely difficult moments, but those involving children are particularly memorable.
The situation in Gaza is terrible
I wondered what medical examiners in Gaza were experiencing, “The most dangerous place on this planet for a toddler– says UNICEF.
Every day they bear witness to the truth wherein… New York Times he decided “too scary to post” because he refuses to print photos dozens of youngsters with gunshot wounds to the pinnacle, neck and chest.
These photos got here from healthcare providers and document their time in Gaza to offer desperately needed medical care in a spot where almost half of the population are children.
They fight day-after-day to stop the deadly tsunami that’s also known as the world’s first live-streamed genocide. WITH unimaginable determination and fatiguetreat tens of hundreds of youngsters, some were mortally wounded and mutilated consequently indiscriminate bombing and shooting. These young people have it he was hungry AND terrorized by what the United Nations called a war on children.
This crisis also means a war on health care Gaza hospitals were attacked, besieged, burned or decimated. Hundreds of Palestinian medical examiners in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been killed and countless people have been injured or kidnapped. Some say Human Rights Watch they were subjected to torture.
(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Burning alive
A UN investigation recently accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare systemamounting to A “crime of extermination.”
Disturbing video captures the painful moment while a patient remains to be attached to a drip was seen burning alive in a hospital bedsparkling global outrage.
Hours after it went viral, Israel has banned several Canadian and American medical aid organizations from entering Gaza providing critical emergency support – crippling the flexibility of healthcare staff not only to support their Palestinian colleagues in providing life-saving care, but additionally to document what is occurring in Gaza.
Because foreign journalists should not allowed to enter Gaza and Palestinian journalists were targeted and killed on an unprecedented scaleLots what the general public knows in regards to the Gaza Strip comes from healthcare teams.
Over the past 12 months, health care staff have needed to learn latest terminology to explain what is occurring in Palestine: scholasticide, sophicide, suicide AND ecocide.
(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Similarities on Turtle Island
The difficult situation in Gaza refers back to the historical experiences of the indigenous people of Turtle Island. As an intergenerational survivor of India’s residential school system, I’m well aware of this power dynamics inherent within the silence and systemic erasure that always accompanies genocide.
Canada recently celebrated its fourth National Day of Truth and Reconciliation – a time with which the nation grapples the continuing effects of the atrocities committed against indigenous people.
My work focuses on examining and understanding health practices and structures to raised understand tips on how to create anti-racist and anti-oppressive spaces for colleagues, students and patients inside our health systems, including tips on how to engage Indigenous communities in proposing and shaping policies.
Polish lawyer Rafał Lemkin coined the term “genocide”: identification of techniques used during genocide in eight areas: political, social, cultural, economic, biological, physical, religious and moral. Such systemic and large violence is the premise of settler colonialism, and kids bear the heaviest burden of crucial dehumanization.
Many of the atrocities against indigenous people in Canada were committed against indigenous children, which were legitimized and legalized under Indian Act — a blueprint for racial oppression in a democracy — and further enabled and enforced through secrecy, segregation, and silence.
Among the historical witnesses of those atrocities he was noteworthy Dr. Peter Bryce, physician who documented the shocking rates of mortality and abuse suffered by Native children within the residential school system.
As medical director of the Department of the Interior and Indian Affairs, Bryce made his findings public.
He was subsequently ostracized from the federal government and medical community and compelled into retirement. He definitely published his findings in a report entitled “History of a National Crime” from 1922.
A century later, his report stays a key document in understanding acts of genocide committed against indigenous peoples.
Listening to healthcare professionals
Bryce’s honesty shows that the voices of healthcare staff matter because now we have a singular insight into the humanitarian crisis happening in regions affected by conflict.
They have a direct impact on conflict areas due to their ability to offer care and witness. Who are health care staff? experiences in Gaza becomes incompatible with human life.
Significant change will only occur once accomplished military aid, arms transfers AND diplomatic cover for Israel, especially given the intense allegations from two international courts genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Immediate ceasefire and abolition illegal blockade of Gaza are essential to enable healthcare teams to deliver critical, life-saving care and bear witness to ongoing suffering.
Personally, I carry the legacy of my ancestors who watch over me. Their survival of the horrors of the residential school system forces me, as a healthcare employee, to interrupt the silence surrounding those suffering in Gaza.
