Highland nurse describes Gaza's 'overwhelmed' health system: 'I had to put myself there – it was a privilege'
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Ico Bautista Garcia will never forget the sights and smells of treating severely wounded patients – mainly children and women – in a Gaza hospital.
Ico, a nurse in the emergency department at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, has recently returned from the war-hit region where she was part of an international team.
In a moving eyewitness account, she vividly described her six weeks at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza strip, working in challenging conditions and snatching sleep in a corridor at night between air strikes.
The 48-year-old, who was with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), managed a team, including surgeons and nurses, supporting the Ministry of Health.
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Previously, she spent a year in Gaza working at the Nasser, Al-Shifa, and European Gaza hospitals and also returned last year for a short time.
She has also worked with the ICRC in places such as Iraq, Nigeria, Southern Sudan and Bangladesh and has seven years' nursing experience in armed conflict conditions.
But what she experienced in Gaza was totally different.
Ico, who stressed her views were her own, said if she was to use one word to describe the situation it would be "overwhelming".
"I have never seen extensive and deep burns in other conflicts," she said.
"It is something I will never forget, nor the smell plus a lot of closed and open fractures, a lot of head injuries, spinal injuries and all these in young people, in children, in women, some of them pregnant women.
"Their lives are shattered forever.
"The need for reconstructive surgery and mobility aids for Gaza is going to be huge in the future and we are talking about the active population.
"I don't know how they are going to manage."
Ico, who is originally from the Canary Islands, moved to Inverness last summer after spending several years witnessing extreme suffering of people in places where she had been a nurse.
But following the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, she felt compelled to put down her name to go to Gaza – if she was needed and could help.
"My connection with Gaza is that I have friends there," she explained.
"For me, it was difficult to stay here and not say anything."
Getting into Gaza was complicated and frustrating as she waited for 10 days in Cairo to get permission from the Palestinians, Egyptians and Israelis.
Her first impressions of arriving as part of a replacement team was that people were tired.
"The exhaustion was in their faces, in their souls," she said.
"The lack of sleep, the lack of water, the lack of electricity, the lack of food, the lack of safety, the losses they had experienced – they were not the same people."
The European Gaza Hospital was intended to treat to treat 350 patients but has been dealing with about 1000 patients, all war-related, while about 10,000 have been sheltering inside the compound with a further 10,000 immediately outside the compound.
"People are living in the corridors using sheets as walls to separate one household from another," she said.
"In the stairs, you have people sleeping, one person in each step.
"You have people in the offices, in the corridor, everywhere in the garden, everywhere under the stairs, there is no space left that is empty.
"So it's not a hospital. It's an internal displaced people camp.
"It is overwhelming in every way."
Ico, who regarded herself as one of the lucky ones, slept on the floor in the nursing school corridor, away from windows as protection from air strikes.
They shared three toilets, two showers and one kitchen and although there was not always a regular water supply, food was provided by her organisation and the Ministry of Health.
She stressed that Gaza had a robust health system with highly skilled doctors and nurses but it had been completely overwhelmed.
The waste management system, for example, was overwhelmed due to a lack of fuel and safety for the driver.
Everwhere, people queued for everything.
"They queue for the toilets," Ico said. "They queue for food and clothes. They queue for mattresses.
"But people have not lost their dignity. The sense of community is so strong."
She was also impressed by the strength of faith.
"It was amazing to see doctors and nurses have a sense a duty towards their community," she said.
Ico insisted she was not brave in volunteering to go to Gaza and cited her previous experience, her knowledge plus her friends in Gaza whom she considers family.
She also described that what is happening in Gaza as "unthinkable", saying that disproportionate force is being used against the people.
But she acknowledged the dangers and spoke to her parents and two sisters.
"I accepted the risks from the very moment I put my name down," she said.
"There were a couple of tense days and I did say to my family, 'Just remember I would not be anywhere else right now. If something happens, I wanted to do this.'
"But I don't feel brave at all.
"For me, it was difficult to sit here and not say anything.
"I had to put myself there. It was a privilege."
