Not another hospital, not another child
I am furious and sick and complicit and am putting words on a page in an attempt to do something and compel others to join me. Kamal Adwan, the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, was set on fire by Zionist forces (or IOF) and patients and healers alike were forced to leave (to go where?), were detained, or were murdered. I am a healthcare worker, and as a healthcare worker, I see the sanctity of human health and life as my ultimate value and foundation.
Every. Single. Palestinian. Life. Is. A. Whole. Universe. Do not forget it.
There is a literal genocide happening in Gaza. Some (Zionists) choose to get defensive at best and celebratory at worst. Many choose to ignore it, to decide it’s not their problem, a privilege compounded by bias in mainstream western media. But literally everywhere there are also those of us who refuse to defend or ignore, who are finding ways and paths to actively stand against the destruction of Palestine (even as we acknowledge our complicity) and the mass murder of Palestinians and therefore stand for hope and love and justice and maybe, just maybe, eventually peace.
Which brings me to why I’m writing these words on a page. There are 3 major healthcare systems who run healthcare in Milwaukee, that reach across the state of Wisconsin and beyond. All three (Advocate Aurora, Ascension, and Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin) have missions that supposedly also center the sanctity of human health and life. And yet they, like every single other hospital system in the United States, have said nothing about the destruction of hospitals in Gaza, destruction that would be beyond the scope of my imagination and yet has been documented by journalists (who are also being targeted and murdered) and human rights organizations and by all who are witnessing it. We have the responsibility to hold our local systems accountable for their hypocrisy. These systems serve Palestinian patients and employ Palestinians, and even if they did not, how can any hospital / healthcare system stand silent while hospitals are being set on fire and healthcare workers are being targeted, detained, tortured, and murdered? The silence is deafening.
Our country, the United States, is using our taxpayer dollars to support and abet this destruction, which includes decimating neonatal intensive care units and reproductive health clinics and the lives they held. In our own backyard in Milwaukee, Derco is supplying the parts that allow the planes dropping bombs on hospitals to fly. It is complex and messy, but at the end of the day, this genocide is a boon to the military industrial complex, and to those who benefit from the extension of US colonialism through the occupation of Palestine (and there are Zionists in our local healthcare systems and across the country).
Healthcare Workers for Palestine-Milwaukee, a chapter of the national grassroots and decentralized Healthcare Workers for Palestine coalition in the United States, has communicated with Advocate Aurora, Ascension, and Froedtert & MCW leaders, as well as the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin endowment, sharing information on what has been happening in Gaza and clarifying our demands. We have received no response.
Our demands, first announced publicly on Nakba Day, May 15 2024, are:
Publicly disclose investments in Israel, as well as those that indirectly or directly profit from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine.
Divest from all such investments.
Cut research and health partnerships with Israeli and other institutions complicit in genocide.
So what then is our response, as healthcare workers, as healers, as human beings who care about our own health and the health of our loved ones? What actions can we take, those of us (whose numbers are growing every day) who are sick from watching genocide being live streamed? Who recognize that the murder and genocide of Palestinian healthcare workers and patients is in direct conflict with the values of interprofessionalism and equitable patient care and the simple yet profound love of humanity?
We can organize. We can grow and refuse to be siloed and silenced within our separate healthcare systems, unable to find each other in settings where discussion of Palestine appears to pose an existential threat to the careers that called to us. Because no matter what the consequences from our employers are, we will always be healthcare workers, healers, and lovers of humanity. We must take risks.
You can decide what you are capable of, and I am speaking to all of you, whether you are a healthcare worker/healer or someone who interacts with our healthcare systems (and everyone will, at some point). There is a specific upcoming action that I encourage us all to participate in: call in sick on Monday, January 6th, a direct request coming from a coalition of Palestinian voices and chapters of Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and led by Doctors Against Genocide.
“We are broken. 💔 After witnessing 15 months of relentless violence and destruction in Gaza, we can no longer carry on as if everything is normal. The international system has failed, and we are sick—sick from genocide, sick from complicity, and sick from silence.
On January 6th, we are taking a Mental Health Sick Leave to demand justice, accountability, and an end to this genocide.
To all healthcare workers, professionals, and allies—stand with us. Pause. Grieve. Demand change.”
To all healthcare workers and allies in Milwaukee calling in sick on January 6th, join us in a banner drop near the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center from 8am-9am!
Follow us on instagram for more details.
Other opportunities look like bringing up Palestine in grand rounds, morning rounds, department meetings, meetings with leaders. Wearing a keffiyuh. Sharing resources such as mental health support and pro-Palestinian events for American providers in your team emails and chats. Call, as loudly as you can, for Not Another Hospital, Not Another Child. Consider medical mission work. Connect with HCW4Palestine. Refuse to be silent; we should not give up our own rights to free speech, because we are more than cogs in a machine. This is how we find each other and grow and talk and hold our systems, which we are a part of, accountable.
And never forget: every single Palestinian life is a whole universe. And in all the ways that matter, no matter who you are or who your ancestors were, our liberation is connected, and we are all Palestinian.
This article expresses the author’s views and while they are a member, they are not writing on behalf of HCW4Palestine (nationally or locally).
