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Article by: Neville Yong
I am sitting in the library, watching and reading the latest updates by the minute. I have attempted to write this article countless times now. I knew I wanted to write a piece about the Israel-Palestine conflict for the Med Memo since last week. Yet, my deadline is arriving and I have barely started. How does one approach such a deep-rooted and sensitive topic that is able to not just shed light on an issue
, but to depict it with the utmost respect and accuracy that it deserves, all in the name of journalism?
The truth is, there is no ‘right’ answer. There is no ‘right’ way to write about a series of events that is anything but right. In the unprecedented span of one and a half weeks, the lives of more than 4000 innocent civilians have been taken and 1.1 million people have been displaced from their homes. It is no surprise that the healthcare system in Gaza has collapsed beyond repair.
When even the most cutting edge of hospitals are unequipped to handle the overwhelming influx of critical patients near the brink of death, the world sits back and refuses to offer humanitarian aid, expecting Gaza to handle it all with only a few hours of running electricity allocated to them each day, depleting fuel reserves expected to run out in a mere few days, and generators.
The task of an Emergency Medicine team is to be responsible in the making of vital decisions. However, when the decision comes to choosing between abandoning an entire Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or moving premature babies to another location due to a bomb threat, whereby any form of transportation, let alone in a warzone only puts them at a greater risk of dying, is it still classified as Emergency Medicine? At what point does the job description of Emergency Medicine physicians become a game of Russian Roulette? Hospitals, which should be the safest places to seek refuge, have now become targets for airstrikes. The World Health Organization is calling this a humanitarian catastrophe, with 47 Palestinian families having been removed from the civil registry already. But enough with numbers and statistics. What can you do?
In a postmodernist world where we have access to all forms of media reporting information, or disinformation on the daily, it is pertinent that we practice critical thinking and build a good sense of media literacy. To be able to see the truth is the most important thing that we can do to fight for the freedom of Palestine.
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