Hong Kong Red Cross medical personnel recount experience serving in Gaza
發佈日期: 2025-11-23 21:46
TVB News
A group of medical personnel from the Hong Kong Red Cross shared their frontline relief experiences in the Gaza Strip.
This as some of the volunteers urged the community to increase its support for the Red Cross' work and called for a boost in emotional and mental care for those suffering in the Palestinian territories.
Amid the terror of constant airstrikes and daily assaults on the Gaza Strip, a group of medical personnel from the Hong Kong Red Cross braved the risks of shelling and gunfire to provide much-needed assistance to the Palestinian people.
Based in a makeshift hospital in Rafah, the team consists of volunteers and medical professionals who have served in disaster sites and warzones across Haiti, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
Many of them shared their shock of the brutality they witnessed in the Gaza Strip, recalling an almost never-ending stream of mutilated patients and having to comfort a father who lost six sons in a single airstrike.
Carman Kwok, a nurse specialising in palliative care, said one of her most unforgettable experiences in Rafah was caring for a mother who suffered extensive burn injuries.
I took care of a lady who just finished a big surgery.
She experienced an (airstrike) and got burned in the abdomen.
They put a lot of tubes inside (her) and it's a severe injury and I took care of her in the recovery room that night.
When she recovered and gained consciousness, she looked at me.
It's really touching because she held me and told me, "when I saw you for the first time, I was so peaceful -- so don't leave me."
It's so touching.
Walter Leung, a veteran nurse and recipient of the 50th Florence Nightingale Medal, shared his reasons for returning to the Gaza Strip next month, which will be his fourth time in the devastated region.
I think it goes back to my nursing training 40 plus years ago, when our tutors who were mostly Catholic nuns.
The sisters already planted in our hearts that we are caring for patients not just as patients, the patients are people.
Respect and respecting the dignity of the victims is one of our primary concerns.
This is one of my passions that keeps my momentum.
Besides physical assistance, the Red Cross medical personnel said one of the most urgent needs of the Gaza community is mental and emotional care, adding that many patients have lost most if not all their families in Israeli airstrikes, and are in desperate need of assistance to deal with their trauma.
