York nurse deployed to Gaza with UK-Med charity says it is 'a conflict on steroids'

A Yorkshire nurse tells of humanitarian work in Gaza, which she calls ‘a conflict on steroids’, amid continued suffering and warnings of a potential cholera outbreak.

York nurse Kate White has worked in Libya, Iraq and Syria and responded to Ebola outbreaks in Africa, but she believes Gaza is the toughest crisis she has seen yet.

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She was deployed there earlier this year with Manchester-based UK-Med, a frontline medical charity recently featured in The Yorkshire Post in a report on the efforts of Leeds medic Mark Shaw, who also travelled to the region.

Aid worker Kate last month led training for more than 30 humanitarian medics for a cholera outbreak at an immersive simulation exercise held jointly by UK-Med and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in Worcester.

UK-Med nurse Kate White. Credit: Adam Finch.UK-Med nurse Kate White. Credit: Adam Finch.
UK-Med nurse Kate White. Credit: Adam Finch.

The drill came as the United Nations warned the breakdown of water and sanitation systems in war-torn Gaza could lead to outbreaks of cholera and other life-threatening infectious illnesses.

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Kate said: “I’ve been to lots of tricky war zones, but Gaza is by far the worst I’ve seen.

“I’ve been to Libya, Iraq and Syria but Gaza is like a conflict on steroids. The level of destruction that had happened in Gaza over four months took over four years in north-east Syria. It’s like a conflict on fast forward.

“There’s not been a cholera outbreak in Gaza for a long, long time, but infectious disease outbreaks are common in conflict and disaster zones where health and sanitation infrastructure are damaged and destroyed.

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Cholera outbreak training in Worcester. Picture: Adam Finch.Cholera outbreak training in Worcester. Picture: Adam Finch.
Cholera outbreak training in Worcester. Picture: Adam Finch.

“Our teams on the ground are already witnessing thousands of cases of scabies, hepatitis A and respiratory tract infections, which is why we do all we can to prepare medics in the UK for what they might encounter when deploying abroad. Preparation saves lives. That’s our mantra.”

Following Gaza’s first case of polio for 25 years, humanitarian pauses in violence were agreed so the WHO could vaccinate around 560,000 children during a 12-day emergency campaign at the start of September.

As of last month, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) reported 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A and warned severe water shortages and the shutdown of the majority of Gaza’s 65 sewage plants increases the risk of a cholera outbreak.

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Foreign Secretary David Lammy previously announced a further £5.5million this year to UK-Med to fund their life-saving work in Gaza.

The UK has also lifted the pause on funding to UNRWA - releasing £21 million to supply emergency food, shelter and other support for three million people, as well as its wider work supporting six million Palestinian refugees across the region.

Meanwhile, Development Minister Anneliese Dodds also announced a £6million package for UNICEF in August to help tens of thousands of Gazans access food and water, as well as health, education and wellbeing services.

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Brisbane-born Kate, 44, is now preparing to return to Gaza after a month-long deployment in February.

She said: “The conveyor belt of patients at Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital in the north of Gaza was relentless. This hospital is comparable in size to York and it was overflowing.

“And oh my God, the injuries. One really sad memory is a woman who was rushed in with a traumatic hindquarter amputation - one of the most severe and mutilating operations in surgery. Amongst lots of other wounds, basically the whole entire leg right into her pelvis had been blown off.

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“The bottom line was that even in a Western hospital what you could do for this person is pretty limited. You might be able to keep them alive and give them some quality of life, but none of the things you’d ordinarily do were available in the whole of Gaza. It was extremely traumatic for everyone and she didn’t make it.”

UK-Med is now running two FCDO-funded field hospitals – based in Al Mawasi and Deir El Balah – which have treated more than 170,000 patients in Gaza so far.

Kate, the charity’s programme manager, says she was regularly rocked by nearby explosions during her stint in Gaza.

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She said: “Every second day the thought would pop into my head that we’d dodged death.

“Gaza is a tiny space and the humanitarian designated zone is extremely close to explosions. It’s possibly the closest I’ve ever been.

“I think the weirdest thing for me is that it has become too normal for the population. You feel the explosion when you are really close. You feel it in the ground. It’s almost like it radiates through your body. In other places I’ve worked in, there would be fear and panic.

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“But in Gaza, people just shrug and then carry on what they are doing. It is not normal to live like that.

“I remember distinctly two nights where there was a lot of shooting around 50 metres away from where we were staying. It was an operation where four hostages were rescued. You could hear the gunfire and just so many aerial bombardments.

“It’s not just the explosions – it’s the constant buzzing in the background. That’s drones. Imagine that 24/7.

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“The bottom line is you don’t get enough sleep in Gaza because between the explosions, the gunfire, the constant hum of drones, there is just that constant feeling of being on edge. It is exhausting.

“If I am only there a month and exhausted, can you imagine how people trapped there feel?”

Kate knows that working in hazardous countries around the world can be tough for her friends and family.

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She said: “Both my parents passed away a couple of years ago, but I have three siblings and who get

worried. I think maybe with Gaza those feelings have been heightened.”

“My first conflict zone was Libya in 2011. I remember being on a satellite phone to my mum thinking that it would reassure her, but there was this massive explosion in the background. She said ‘What was that?’ and I said ‘Oh, it’s a thunder storm’.

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“Interestingly, conflict zones were not the most difficult thing for mum to deal with. The most difficult conversation we had was when I was being deployed to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

“It was all over the news after some British and American health workers had been infected and medically evacuated. Suddenly my mum was saying ‘I don’t know if I want you to go’. I’d been out responding to Ebola for two years so I went into detail of our procedures and said ‘I can’t guarantee I won’t get infected, but I’m 99 per cent confident that I won’t’. She was like ‘Okay’.

“Over the years, I’ve learned sometimes no news is good news. I’ve warned my family that if you ever get a phone call from whoever I am working for, that’s the only moment to get worried.”

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The cholera outbreak training comes as the UK Emergency Medical Team stands ready to respond to any medical emergency around the world.

Kate said: “The better prepared our medics are, the more effectively they’ll be able to do their jobs in high-stress environments like Gaza or Ukraine. You never know what you’re going to encounter in the field, so being able to react quickly is a lifesaving skill.”

Development Minister Anneliese Dodds said: “In Gaza and elsewhere, aid workers from around the UK are operating in some of the most dangerous places in the world, treating the most vulnerable.

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“The UK’s official Emergency Medical Team pools medical expertise from across the country to make a real difference in reacting to humanitarian disasters around the globe. The UK government is proud to support their crucial work.”

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