For some in the American West, the war in Gaza is half a world away. For others, the conflict is ever-present even when they’re at home in rural Colorado. This is the case for Doctor Barbara Zind.
I sat down with her to discuss the conflict in Palestine.
Barbara Zind is a pediatrician, who recently retired from Western Colorado Pediatrics in Grand Junction. Here, she discusses some of her hopes by offering talks about her experiences in Palestine.
"Since 2010, I've been volunteering with the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), and now I volunteer with Heal Palestine to help children with medical needs. This past October, I went to Gaza the day before the war started,” Zind explained.
Zind hopes for more people to understand the situation of the Palestinians. She says that Americans know very little about their circumstance and would like them to have a better understanding.
Zind first got involved in the region, specifically with Gaza, when her children were grown and left the house.
"My father's from southern Lebanon and when my children got older, I knew I had some extra time, and as a pediatrician who doesn't perform surgery, going to foreign countries, sometimes we wonder: what can we do?"
Wanting to leave a lasting impact, Zind took an opportunity with the PCRF to consult with children with chronic diseases. Sponsored by PCRF, Zind would make sure that the sponsorship money was truly going toward a good cause by educating parents about their children’s disease and educating the children too.
“I had already done some work in Jordan one day in the West Bank, a little bit in Lebanon, too. I was supposed to spend three days seeing a hundred children in Gaza and then do more work on the West Bank,” Zind said.
The beginning of the war in Gaza began on an early morning walk on the beach with the project manager in Gaza and his daughter - whom Zind has known for years. This was when they noticed all of these missiles going from Gaza towards Israel.
“You could see the iron dome missiles barring them from entering Israel. So my three-day trip ended up being until November 1st,” Zind explained.
After meeting another PCRF volunteer, Ramona Okamura, Zind and she stayed together the entire time, spending a few days at the hotel and then at the UN meeting other humanitarian workers.
“There were 40 to 50 of us. From then on, we moved to the UN facility until we were allowed to be evacuated," Zind continued.
Many of the residents of Western Colorado that Zind lives near have not lived in a warzone, so I asked Zind what she most hopes to have people understand about the conflict.
"I want people to know what it was like for the Gazan people before the war started in the years that I've been going there. What they've had to deal with, the challenges to get health care, food and water, electricity, and all of those things before the war started,” Zind revealed.
Since the war, Zind clearly understands and communicates with doctors who are going there now, and about the situation for them. She also corresponds with Gazans who she’s gotten to know over the years. Zind now volunteers with Heal Palestine who just sent their first medical group to Gaza.
“It was four physicians, in conjunction with IMANA (Islamic Medical Association of North America). We were communicating with them the whole time about what conditions were like - just terrible in the hospital. They were in South Gaza where 1,600 patients went to the emergency department daily without enough operating rooms,” Zind said.
Other volunteer groups, most of them surgical groups - because that's what is needed with the casualties that continue to be - see civilians suffering due to a lack of operating rooms, not enough equipment, or getting the sterile equipment or the right equipment has been a problem.
Four people brought forty-four suitcases because they had to bring their own anesthesia.
“You have to bring all your equipment and be ready for anything. It is just horrendous what little they have there. I've also communicated with someone who was a medical student when I worked with him a few years ago, and now he's a physician. He's been doing his best to try to organize shipments of insulin for children” explained Zind. “So the only insulin that the Israelis are allowing in is a combination that's geared towards adults with diabetes, not children. Right now it's brought in by the suitcase. It's not enough for all the children with diabetes there. Their families go day by day and do the best they can for their children and just hope for a ceasefire.”
These families have moved from site to site without complaint. One gentleman Zind has been communicating with talks about how he's just trying to raise his family with hope, without hatred. A lot of people feel this way according to Zind.
For a growing number of Americans, these sorts of global situations can incite feelings of wanting to help. Dr. Zind had several recommendations for organizations that are having an impact on the situation.
"Heal Palestine is one, but I think the UN Refugee Works Association, UNRWA, is hands-on. They're on the ground doing it, doing this work,” said Zind. “Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services, and Doctors Without Borders - all great organizations. There are many more that have been in Gaza for years and are doing a lot of work now and have doctors and other medical personnel risking their lives and going in. The other way (to help) is just being aware of the situation.”
Zind says that it’s both sides of this war who have been targeting civilians. She doesn’t condone anything that Hamas does, yet knows that civilians are dying needlessly, hospitals are being bombed, and medical workers are being killed.
“So I continue to work with Heal Palestine by helping them establish a safety protocol for teams going in because we want to be sure everyone knows what to do when these emergencies happen. And then I'm also helping them screen all these organizations, getting hundreds or thousands of emails or other social media posts about sick children and adults that need to get out for medical care,” said Zind.
The screening process, a diagnosis by a photo, is difficult, and heartbreaking because Zind has to decide who is worth leaving the country for treatment.
“It's so sad and difficult but I'm helping with that to try to get the kids out that we can treat. Eventually, they'll go back to their homes versus the kids who will need chronic medication for the rest of their lives. We don't have the facilities because you have to have a hospital that will treat for free, doctors that will treat for free" Zind explained.
Zind says there are several maladies among the population that her colleagues are seeing repeatedly.
"There are a lot of amputations. There are a lot of children who are hit with shrapnel and thousands with amputations. HEAL has brought some of these children to the U.S. to get prosthetics.” Zind continues to explain that in the winter there are still a lot of respiratory diseases, yet nothing to offer for them. There’s no oxygen, there are problems with premature babies; there were six premature babies under one warmer because you just don't have the facility or the space. Everything is amplified. And then you have dysentery, you have Hepatitis A, all of those things that we expect to see in a situation where you don't have clean water and you don't have sanitation facilities. Nothing is running, they've been bombed so human waste is just out there.”
When asked if she had any parting thoughts, Dr. Zind concluded with this:
"Well, I'm not a politician, but I'd like to tell people that this is not a religious war. Christians are treated just as poorly in the West Bank in Gaza as Muslims are. It's not a war against Judaism. It's a political war like they all are. And so I don't condone any hate speech, any speech against a religion or an ethnic group. This is politics at its worst, honestly."
