Health / Healthcare workers show support for medical colleagues in Gaza
The group also reiterated calls for a ceasefire in the deadly conflict
A VIGIL was held by Shetland healthcare professionals in Lerwick earlier today (Thursday) to send a message of support to medical colleagues in Gaza – as well as to call for a ceasefire.
Around 15 doctors and medical students lined up on the road across from the Gilbert Bain Hospital.
Paediatrician Alex Armitage said medical staff in Gaza are “working in intolerable circumstances”.
“We are also calling for a ceasefire, for international law to be upheld and for international humanitarian aid to be let into the Gaza Strip,” he said.
Armitage, who is also a local councillor, added: “We gathered as a group of health professionals to send a message of support for our clinical colleagues in Gaza, who are currently working in intolerable conditions with electricity, water and medicines cut off, overwhelmed by the huge burden of critically injured patients suffering from major trauma due to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
“A surgical colleague in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza has sent a message to say that staff are exhausted, terrified and feeling powerless, and begged us to push for an immediate ceasefire.
“We wish to add our voices to the 76 per cent of people in Britain who are calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“We urge our government to change its position and apply maximum pressure on Israel to stop its attacks, and reinstate the supply of water, electricity, food, fuel and emergency humanitarian supplies, which are necessary to save lives any treat those who have suffered life changing injuries.”
It comes after a gathering outside Lerwick Town Hall last month as members of the public called for a ceasefire in the region.
Gathering outside town hall demands immediate ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war
The conflict started in early October following Hamas attacks in Israel, and it has seen large scale devastation in Gaza in retaliation.
Thousands in both areas have died as a result, with hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed in the face of a growing humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations said this week that hospitals in Gaza were “hanging on by a thread”.
It said on 30 October that 117,000 displaced people are sheltering in the 10 hospitals still operational in Gaza city and elsewhere in northern Gaza, which have received “repeated evacuation orders”.
The UN added that emergency caesarean sections, for example, are being performed without anaesthesia amid shortages of medical supplies and power.
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