On Feb. 24, Amy Potter, an emergency room nurse from Thunder Bay, returned from a one-month assignment with Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Khan Younis and Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost point. She spoke about her experiences with freelance journalist Claire Porter Robbins, who worked for the same MSF mission in 2022.
What kind of facilities were you working in?
When I first arrived, we couldn’t find a structure or tent materials, so we ended up working out of the back of two trucks, seeing about 450 patients a day. This was tough because obviously the truck was ill-equipped, we had no running water or power.
Eventually, the team and I were able to set up a temporary primary-care clinic in an under-construction building near the Egyptian border to continue to serve the large internally displaced population living there. We were able to power the building with solar panels and we had running water. In three weeks, we saw more than 7,100 patients in that makeshift clinic.
What sorts of ailments were you treating?
We saw a lot of upper respiratory infections. It was very cold and windy, everyone was building fires in their makeshift tents, and we saw burns from children falling in the fire. We also saw a lot of skin ailments. There’s just not enough water to drink let alone to have proper hygiene.
Did you deal with shortages of medications or supplies?
Yes, quite a bit. We even had to ration over-the-counter painkillers at points. It was hard to not be able to help people with chronic conditions. People had gone without their diabetes or blood pressure medication for months. Patients would ask, “Can I get a puffer for my daughter?” and sometimes we could, sometimes we couldn’t.
That must have been really hard.
Yeah, I mean, I take thyroid medication every day. I brought a three-month supply. That’s just unheard of there. Many people would come to the clinic with conditions such as hypertension and the most we could give would be a few weeks’ supply at a time.
And what about in the ER at the hospital? As a nurse, you’re often the first person a patient sees after a traumatic event. What was that like for you mentally?
One of the worst things is the feeling of complete helplessness owing to the lack of medical equipment. I distinctly remember one gentleman arriving in the back of a donkey cart; he had fallen and struck his head. In a hospital in North America that is a very routine thing to treat. We would put a breathing tube in, put them on monitors, start an IV, bloodwork, take a CT scan, give medication and call neurosurgery.
But in Gaza, I just looked at the family with an apologetic look. I mean, I’m working out of a truck. I had none of those tools. There are no telecommunications, so we couldn’t even call for help. The best we could do in that moment was redirect the family down the road in the hope of finding an ambulance. I will never forget that overwhelming helpless feeling in that moment.
I remember interviewing trauma patients after an escalation in 2022 – you can’t forget their faces.
There was a little girl. She was about 9. Back in October, her house was shelled, her leg was broken and her parents died. Her uncle brought her in because she’d had no follow-up care after the initial surgery. They came in to see a physiotherapist, pushing her in a baby stroller, far too small for her. When they picked her up and put her on the bed, she was screaming. Someone interpreted for me that she kept saying “I just want to die. Let me die.” And I just couldn’t take the fact that to this 9-year-old, death is her best option.
Her uncle was unable to bring her in every day for physiotherapy because if you come every day then you don’t go line up for food or water that day. You have to pick what you do.
I remember thinking, ‘I’m never going to forget this moment.’ When I was alone, I broke down crying.
How are your Palestinian colleagues doing?
They are some of the most incredible staff I’ve ever worked with. They’ve lost so much personally and yet they still keep showing up to work. You probably saw that one of the MSF shelters was shelled. Some of the staff lost family members, but they showed up to work afterward, even though they didn’t have to.
(Editor’s note: On the shelling of the MSF shelter, the Israeli Defence Forces said in a statement that “during operational activity” in Khan Younis, the IDF fired at a building that was identified as one where terror activity was occurring. Afterward, reports were received of the death of two uninvolved civilians in the area and the IDF are examining the incident.)
While you were in Gaza, MSF’s General Secretary Christopher Lockyear spoke at the UN Security Council. Do you feel health care organizations are having an impact?
I don’t think they’re having the impact I wish they had. I’ve listened to the speech a couple of times. Everything he said is so real, so true, so accurate. Health care providers can’t stop bombs, but we can keep speaking out about what we’ve seen. Whether it’s me or Chris or anyone else who’s been there, we can tell you the truth. It’s catastrophic. We need a sustained ceasefire.
This interview has been edited and condensed.