The CBC news clip that you will see by clicking on the link below in which Dr. Anas Al-Kassem is being interviewed by CBC newscaster Chris Glover will pierce anyone’s heart. In the photograph shown above, Dr. Al-Kassem stitches up a child’s wound on the floor of the hospital in the city of Khan Yunis. Photograph: CBC/Submitted by Anas Al-Kassem.

WARNING: The CBC story contains graphic images.

PLEASE CLICK: http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2297816131919

A Canadian trauma surgeon says that for every child he saved in the hospital in southern Gaza, another would die of their injuries. “We lost many children before our eyes,” said Dr. Anas Al-Kassem, chief surgeon at Norfolk General Hospital and West Haldimand General Hospital. 

The Hamilton-based doctor travelled to Gaza last month as part of a medical convoy to help Palestinians injured in the Israel-Hamas war, and suffering from what the World Health Organization has called “catastrophic” health conditions. 

Dr. Al-Kassem said he would treat upwards of 30 people each day, at least half of whom were children, some as young as two. Many suffered head trauma, shrapnel in the chest and abdomen, or injuries to their arms and legs that required surgery. He’d stitch up patients’ wounds on the floor without having any bed or painkillers to offer. After quick assessments, the doctors would have to decide who to try to save with their limited resources, he said.

Al-Kassem said there were bright moments, like when he and another surgeon from Toronto saved an eight-year-old boy’s life by removing shrapnel from his heart. Al-Kassem, a father of five, returned to his Ancaster, Ont., home last Thursday after the two-week mission, but said his “heart and soul” stayed behind. PLEASE READ THE FULL STORY ON CBC.

Date posted: January 9, 2024.

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