Over 100 doctors from Wellington County and Waterloo are speaking up and showing concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
And these doctors say they’re tired of the inaction of the Canadian government.
Dr. Danusha Foster, a family doctor based in Guelph, is one of 113 doctors who have signed on to a document, addressed to MPs and MPPs from the area, Senators and hospital leaders, a call to act on a number of fronts.
It calls for Canada to “stay bound by the motion passed in Parliament to cease all arms sales to Israel, and that permits previously approved prior to March 18 are also cancelled,” and to urge world allies to do the same.
It advocates for an “unobstructed flow of aid” to Gaza, and to support healthcare workers who are standing with Palestinians, and “oppose efforts to stifle advocacy.”
“I am just so frustrated that there have been so many stories and videos of dead children, children missing limbs, mothers grieving over children, over spouses that have passed away,” Foster said.
“We keep hearing stories of mass graves. How many stories we have to hear before we all agree that this is something we can talk about?”
Foster said healthcare professionals away from the conflict have been inundated with videos directly from Gaza. With that comes grief, but also a lot of silence in the medical community.
“It was like we couldn’t talk about this,” she said, adding many doctors who did speak out early on were sanctioned.
“There was a lot of concern that something is happening. It’s scary, it’s frightening, we want to talk about it but we can’t because we’ll get into trouble.”
“This is a healthcare matter because we are dealing with, not only violence and trauma in Gaza, but we’re dealing with the spread of preventable illness. We’re dealing with a man-made famine essentially,” she added.
Throughout all of it, Foster said the federal government didn’t seem to be moving on the issue.
She said a town hall in Guelph in January brought together a community of healthcare workers who wanted to “channel their grief into action.”
Foster said starting the letter at a regional level allows for an intense concentration of support, and might attract local institutions and government members to do something. But the hope is to slowly expand the reach beyond Wellington and Waterloo through social media.
“We’re hoping that other physicians can be aware of this in other areas,” Foster said.
“We’ve actually made our letter fully public and we’ve made our letter into a template that other physicians and healthcare workers (and anyone else) can use to build their own.”
She said healthcare workers are trained to be leaders and health advocates, and there was a feeling of frustration in the silence.
Foster said it is through frustration, grief and the strength of those who were brave enough to speak out before – despite any backlash that followed – that this collection of medical professionals felt the power to speak out and put their names out there, “no matter the cost.”
“I don’t care about my own discomfort,” she said. “Us physicians who have signed the letter, wrote the letter, we are comfortable with the discomfort that may come our way.
“Because if we don’t speak up, what is the consequence of that?”
