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| Nada... |
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| ...at work |
She is a Syrian medic.
Her first name is Nada (Arabic for dew).
Her surname is withheld for security reasons.
At the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in mid-March
2011, she was in her sixth year of study and clinical work at Damascus
University’ School of Medicine to become an MD or doctor.
As the military, security and paramilitary forces of
President Bashar al-Assad intensified their brutal repression of demonstrators,
activists and insurgents, Nada stayed home in Zamalka, a town of about 50,000 in
Ghota just east of the capital’s neighborhood of Jobar.
Regime forces then started killing and abducting wounded
members of the opposition from hospitals and clinics.
Video footage leaked from a military hospital in Homs
earlier this year showed wounded patients blindfolded and shackled to their
beds by medical staff loyal to the regime.
Opposition forces responded by gradually developing
their own makeshift medical facilities, which is when Nada was enlisted into the
underground care network from her home in Zamalka,
She and many other Syrian medics now face an uphill
struggle to attend to the mounting casualties of the war.
To cope with the rush of casualties, Nada has just
set up a “field hospital” that she walks you through in the video below.
Nada and the other Syrian medics manning field
hospitals or makeshift frontline clinics across the most dangerous parts of the
country to help the wounded face summary execution by Assad forces. The regime
perceives them as prolonging the lives of “terrorists.”
Three Aleppo University students who helped treat
demonstrators shot by regime forces were arrested at a checkpoint in mid-June.
Their mutilated and charred bodies were found in a burned car a week later.
For the benefit of non-Arabic readers of this post,
here is a translation of how Nada introduces her underground medical premises:
These [premises] offset my efforts and those of my team
of seven volunteers.
As you notice, we get the medical supplies and
display them this way in order to be able to pick what we need as quickly as
possible.
The section we’re entering here is where we receive
the wounded. It consists of a chair and first-aid trolleys with a range of
medical supplies covering first aid and primary care requirements. Modest contributions
coming from people very close to us paid for them.
On this side, I have my “field hospital,” which is
the section where I perform my surgical procedures. It’s nothing more than an adequate
Operating Room, simple but large at the same time. It has basic equipment but ample
instruments.
I trace back my experience and the work I am doing to
my earlier years, when I was supposed to earn a living in order to continue my
studies.
I have served as assistant surgeon at more than one
hospital around the country. That’s how I gained my experience.
Since the beginning of the revolution, my obsession
was to commit 24 hours a day to the young men of the Free Syrian Army.
In Zamalka, we had to cope at one point with 270 martyrs
and 400 wounded.
It was a big miracle for us to move from one place to
another to treat the wounded.
We got to the stage where we had to carry this humble
suitcase [of medical supplies] from one roof to another. Checkpoints were
everywhere in Zamalka.
We used to carry suitcases from one roof to the other
and through concrete walls or homes to the next. We cut through concrete walls
and smashed windows to get through with our suitcases.
I was staying at home in the early days of the
revolution. They [insurgents] came by and told me someone was injured. The wounded
man was lying on the street in the gunsight of a sniper. The sniper would even
take aim at a cat if it came near.
I was forced to crawl from one highway to another to avoid
the sniper and reach the wounded. I operated on his chest on the pavement.
I felt elated later, when I saw him carrying his firearm
and heading back to the front.
حَسْبُنَا اللّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ or “Allah is sufficient for us. He is the best guardian.”
The problem for us medics
is not whether this or that person backs the regime. The predicament is there
are people who need our help.
