This is the familiar story of one of many injured healthcare workers in Gaza hospitals right now.
Mahmood Jamil Mattar was a nurse for over 10 years at the ministry of health in Gaza. He worked at the Andalusi Hospital in Northern Gaza. Mahmood refused to abandon his patients and continued to turn up and serve the injured and risking his life doing so despite the orders to evacuate the hospital and northern Gaza. It is ofcourse to abandon a hospital full of sick patients. His family evacuated whilst he fulfilled his duty to remain and serve the sick.
After 35 continuous days of serving at the hospital and sleeping where he worked, on the 13th November 2023, Mahmood was shot three times in the leg whilst on shift.
Mahmood's care is lacking antibiotics, pain relief, surgical input, clean water, saline, nutrition, dressings, creams for daily wound debridement and much more. Mahmood requires daily care which is not possible given the thousands of injured patients and those sheltering in hospitals. Due to lacking care, Mahmood has contracted life threatening gangrene which is slowly ravaging his limbs.
Mahmood screams every waking minute due to the severe pain of gangrene ravaging his body without appropriate antibiotics or simple pain relief. His screams are haunting and hard to forget. He screams until he passes out from exhaustion then the cycle begins again. Every waking minute.
Mahood's wife - a journalist - sent a request to our healthcare team in the UK to escalate his care due to his severe life threatening wound to try and save his life or have the mercy on it. Like many patients in his condition, Mahmood dreams of death and it's relief. His son is currently mute from the trauma of watching his father's pain and listening to his father die painfully and helplessly.
His case was escalated 72 hours ago to the World Health Organisation head of the Middle East Region and we were hopeful for an evacuation.
The World Health Organisation pushed for his request to be evacuated only to be refused by the Israeli authorities. Instead they consented to entry of limited medication for treatment. Yesterday Mahmood had his feet amputated with the aim of slowing the infection whilst antibiotics have the slim chance to try and fight the spreading gangrene. It is likely he will have both limbs amputated at the hip and never sit again. If he manages to live through this.
His story needs to be heard. Tragically he is just one of many injured and killed healthcare professionals. These are the purest, most faithful humans of earth and need us to keep sharing and recognising their sacrifice.
All Mahmood did to deserve this was to refuse to abandon his vulnerable patients. Let us not abandon him.
Please share and sign our petition and if you can help his personal situation in anyway please email me suesanne.samara@gmail.com and I will connect you to his family in Gaza.