This is about humanity…
The poet John Donne famously wrote that “no man is an island”. I thought of those words recently, when I learned that the NHS surgeon who saved my life had put his own life on the line whilst training and supporting surgeons in Gaza.
Professor Tas Qureshi is a Consultant Laparoscopic (key-hole) Surgeon whose expertise has been recognised by the NHS as well as internationally. He is pioneering the use of Robotic key-hole surgery. As one of his patients at Poole Hospital, I experienced the benefits of the Enhanced Recovery Programme Tas set up.
Even then, I was struck by the gentleness Tas displayed when he spoke to me and
my wife. As Chair of Purbeck Semi-Colons – a support group for those living with
bowel cancer – I had the opportunity and privilege of meeting Tas. I learned of his
work and how he had made trips to Gaza to support surgeons working there. At each
meeting, I knew I was meeting someone very special.
I had read about Gaza. I had marched in London with many thousands, all of us
united in sympathy and solidarity for the people suffering there. As a grandfather, I
had felt increasing concern that so many children had been killed, along with their
mothers and siblings. In May, UNICEF – the United Nations Children Fund – reported that
more than 50,000 children had been killed or injured since October 2023.
But it was listening to Tas – who was last in Gaza, working in the Nasser Hospital, in
October 2024 – that moved me to the core. This July, Tas spoke in St Michael’s
Church, Wimborne about his experiences, as he has on YouTube and at other public
events. His testimonies demand that we listen, that we bear witness to the dire
reality lived by 2.1m people in one of the most densely populated areas of the planet.
Tas has been to Gaza twice since October 2023, in January and October 2024. The
first thing he noticed was the smell of munitions – the smell of war – then the sound
of drones, never ceasing, day and night.
Tas describes neighbourhoods “completely flattened, razed to the ground”. He
operates to remove shrapnel from torn bodies and repairs holes in bowels and
hearts. Power in Nasser Hospital is provided by just one generator. Hospital staff are
abducted. A mass grave outside the hospital contains 300 to 400 people “with their
hands bound and in their surgical scrubs”. Colleagues go to A&E to find their family
members fatalities in MCI’s – Mass-Casualty Incidents.
There is no water, no food – malnutrition takes a grim toll. Tas operates on a 14 year
old boy who weighs 15kg. All the schools have been destroyed. There are no
teachers. On a slab of concrete, he sees written in Arabic “We want our childhood
back. We want our freedom”.
We should all be moved to the core of our being by what is happening. We must not
be silent. “This isn’t about race, colour or creed”, Tas says. “This is just purely about
humanity”.