American doctor after Gaza trip: You can't survive it. It's just torture

Dr. Vanita Gupta travelled to Gaza in January on a 10-day trip with MedGlobal, a humanitarian aid NGO.

Gupta, an intensive care specialist based in New York City with more than 20 years experience, said she made the trip out of a duty of care to humanity. What she saw during her stay remains forever etched in her heart.

Here she shares details from her trip with TRT World.

TRT World: Were you able to easily take all the medical supplies that you needed to work across the border?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: Oh no. So we had all brought a lot of supplies, as the organisation sent a lot of supplies with us, and we picked up a lot in Egypt. Between us we took 36 suitcases in, and the surgeons travelling with us were carrying the tools they needed to perform surgery. My cases weren't opened, but my colleagues' cases were, so any kind of pain relief medication, like morphine, was not allowed in. It's hideous.

You know crossing the border takes very long. I think it took us 12 to 14 hours because they keep stopping you, and make you wait at different places.

TRT World: Was the pain relief critical in allowing you to do your job properly? How did not having it impact the work you were doing?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: It's really, really hard when you don't have pain medications for people with burns, gunshot wounds, crushed limbs, amputees… all in excruciating pain, right?

Excruciating pain and there is no pain medication to give them. So it's like you're torturing people. I had Tylenol to give, but what's Tylenol? What else could we do?

TRT World: Can you describe the scenes as you entered Gaza? Was it what you were expecting?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: I did not know what I was expecting. I've never seen anything like this. First the extent of homelessness and people just in tents and with a lack of water or food. And then at the hospital (The European General Hospital), there were hundreds of people living on the floor, in the corridors. Then the extent and nature of injuries and children with gunshots and it's just horrific.

I remember once there was this guy with a gunshot to his leg and he came in with a bunch of people who had also been shot at, they all rolled in together. But in the resuscitation room, they only have two or three beds.

So to move onto the next patient, he was just picked up from the bed and put on the floor on the corridor outside, because they didn't have enough beds. He was laying there, crying in pain. It was really sad.

They have no badges, they have no space, they have no supplies.

TRT World: You've mentioned before, dealing with injured children was the most traumatic part of being there. Can you tell me more?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: There was one girl, probably about eight years old, and she will stay in my heart forever.

She had 40 percent third-degree burns on her body. If you don't know what a third-degree burn is, it's a very severe burn. Fort percent of her body. She has lost her home, her father and brother were killed and her mother was also partially burnt. She was just lying there crying. It was terrible because burns are very, very painful.

TRT World: We spoke to another doctor who returned from Gaza and he said these burns were unlike any other burns he'd ever witnessed before, speculating they could have been caused by chemical weapons. What would you say?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: I can't tell you that. You know, burns are classified by the extent they cover the body, and the depth of the burn. So like when we touch something hot, we get a painful little burn, that's just a first-degree burn. But these were third-degree burns. They go deep, and they are very severe now. What is the cause of them? I can't comment on that, because I don't know. But there were a lot of burns.

TRT World: In mid-February, a group of UN experts accused the Israeli military of targeting Palestinian civilians, including children, when they were seeking shelter. Did you see any evidence of this, of children specifically being targeted?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: I think on the last day of our time there, a whole bunch of people had arrived and that's including when I told you earlier about the guy with the gunshot wound. There were also a few children with gunshots to their head.

I asked one of the family members what happened. He mentioned that Khan Younis, which is only about four kilometres from the hospital, had been cleared of tanks from the Israeli army and people thought they could go back to their homes. So they went back to their homes, but the snipers, they never left.

So that day there were several of them shot, a lot of them were children, unfortunately. That's what's going on.

TRT World: You've said that if you were injured in Gaza, you would consider it better to die than to live, can you explain a bit more?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: With burns, you need extensive care, you need specialised care, a burns unit. Specialised care because you have to prevent infections, you have to do special burn treatment and grafting on the skin. Even if you survive, you're completely disfigured. But there is no specialised care.

Then there are people with gunshots, or injuries from having limbs crushed, their legs were amputated. People were being amputated but then they didn't have the right care to follow it up.

Or they're suffering so much in pain, then they get amputated further and then further, and eventually they die. And even if, let's say they miraculously weren't going to die, and survived the hospital, where do they go?

There are no nursing homes, there's nowhere to take care of them. There aren't even functioning hospitals. They don't have homes to go to. They don't have family support. They don't have money for food.

The World Kitchen was giving food to them and to hospital employees, one meal a day. I don't even know that the World Kitchen is around anymore. They shot them, right.

You know, we give tube feeds to hospital patients who can't eat, they don't even have that.

I met a lovely schoolteacher, aged 30. I was shown videos of how he was before. He lay before me with a bullet to his spine, completely paralysed from the neck down. Do you know how sad it was to watch him on a ventilator, completely awake in his head? But slowly, every single day I watched him die, until he died. The last day that I was there.

What is the point? You can't survive it. It's just torture.

Even if there's a ceasefire, you will have thousands more die after, because there's dysentery, there's lack of sanitation, there's no backup system.

No food, no schools. There's nothing.

TRT World: Really traumatic situation you've described, what needs to happen now?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: What needs to happen is number one is ceasefire.

Then they're going to need a lot of money to rebuild everything. Garbage disposal, sanitation. They need mental health doctors. They need a lot. I don't even know where to begin.

TRT World: Will you be going back yourself?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: I promised them that I would go back. But at this moment, more than my bodily presence there, they need advocation to stop the war, to collect funds, to give them an existence.

I think we have to pressurise here in America and we need to stop American aid.

TRT World: It's an election year as well, do you have any faith in either of the two candidates in the US elections to stop aid, back a ceasefire?

Dr. Vanita Gupta: Certainly not (former US President Donald) Trump. I have always been a Democrat, but I'm very disappointed with the government.

I'm really stuck, me and all my friends are too. But what should we do? If we don't vote for the Democrats, then we certainly don't want Trump coming back in. I don't think in his heart (President Joe) Biden wants all this.

He's stuck because Israel has a lot of power in American politics. I don't really understand politics very well. I'm just a doctor, but I think this war is all about money and power.