'It could've been me': Japan Doctors Without Borders chief says dismal medical infrastructure drove doctors in Gaza to depression amid war

Malay Mail

KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 — Dr Yuko Nakajima, the president of the Japan chapter of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) — or Doctors Without Borders in English — revealed that she had been feeling “depressed” and “down” while for patients at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, Palestine from November 14 to December 7, last year.

Spending only three weeks at a warzone affected her psychologically due to the harsh conditions and limited help that they can provide, she told the press at an MSF briefing yesterday.

“I have never been mentally and psychologically affected, but I have,” she related, pointing that this was despite her having over two decades of medical experience and being a board-certified emergency medical services doctor.

“The whole infrastructure is gone. That was the depressing part for me, we do these medical activities and everybody’s working so hard. And as a physician, you do the temporary treatment, you make sure they are stabilised, they survive until surgery.

“But even if they get the long-term prognosis, you know it’s going to be bad because of the whole infrastructure. They don’t have families, they have to worry about safety and food, and I was not feeling well,” Dr Yuko expressed.

Also present at the briefing, Paul McPhun, director for Southeast and East Asia Pacific of MSF, disclosed that some 8,000 patients require medical care that is unavailable to them.

The situation in Gaza had also deteriorated to the point where doctors created an acronym for injured children with no family because it has become a common occurrence: “WCNSF,” which stands for “wounded child, no surviving family.”

Dr Yuko also shared her experience speaking to one of the patients at Nasser Hospital who was also a female doctor where the patient lost her home, husband and two children from the airstrikes.

“It could’ve been me,” she conceded.

During the airstrikes, besides handling the influx of patients, Dr Yuko also had to keep temporary secrets.

“There was a pharmacist who lost three of her children but still didn’t know, and I was told not to tell her yet,” she shared.

By the second week, she was not doing very well psychologically, but the children who lived across the street from the MSF clinic cheered her on as she went to work.

“The children cheered me up,” she said, besides having a colleague talk to her as well.

Thinking about the future of the children who lived in Gaza also took a toll on her.

Since October 7, last year, 14,500 children have died from the attacks in Palestine, which is almost four times more than the death toll of children from all conflicts across the globe in 2019, which was only 4,000, Dr Yuko said.

“Do what you can do, it is probably a lot more than you think,” she urged the public.

In February, Al Jazeera reported that Nasser Hospital was no longer functioning after the Israeli regime raided and shelled the area.

Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders is a financially independent and politically neutral organisation that provides medical assistance in places with armed conflict, natural disasters, epidemics, and healthcare exclusion.

MSF also offered medical assistance to Israel but it was declined.

The Israel-Palestine conflict began as early as the day after Israel’s creation as a state in 1948, displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. There have been attacks by both sides since and there have been multiple failed attempts at peace.

The conflict escalated in October last year after Hamas launched attacks against the south of Israel, but the latter’s retaliation has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians so far according to the Palestinian health ministry.