Gaza doctors struggle with bereavement, overwork, trauma amid genocidal war
Doctors and nurses struggle to cope with the horrors they endured during the height of the Gaza war.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Manar Fayyad, 29, an anaesthesiologist at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, has suffered severe psychological trauma since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
The turning point came when he discovered that a man lying before him in the operating room was his own brother Shadi, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on December 27, 2023.
He recalled the moment he was summoned into the operating room to administer anaesthesia to a critically injured man before emergency surgery.
Although it is difficult to assess how many doctors, nurses and other medical workers have left Gaza and their jobs, official reports have acknowledged a “loss of human resources” and “diminished capacity in the healthcare system”.