12 September 2019
Last week Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)’s team in the UK were delighted to be joined by our Limb Reconstruction Project Assistants from Gaza, Shahd B. Abu Hamad and Mohammed Aghaalkurdi.
Shahd and Mohammed travelled to Liverpool to join limb reconstruction specialists from around the world at a conference hosted by the British Limb Reconstruction Society, “the 4th Combined Congress of the ASAMI-BR & ILLRS societies”. There they discussed the latest developments in treatment and shared key learnings from the MAP-supported limb reconstruction project in Gaza, which began in 2014 in partnership with IDEALS, and for the past 17 months has been responding to a large number of patients with horrific and complex gunshot injuries resulting from Israel’s use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters at the “Great March of Return”.
Since these demonstrations began on 30 March 2018, more than 315 Palestinians have been killed and 33,000 injured by Israeli forces. More than 7,300 of those injured have received gunshot wounds, mostly to their limbs, and at least 1,300 people and rising every week have complex injuries involving significant bone loss.
Speaking at the conference, Shahd gave a presentation on “Stimulan in the management of high velocity gunshot wounds in Gaza”. She shared ground-breaking research, evidencing how Stimulan, a calcium sulfate paste provided to hospitals in Gaza by MAP, has successfully helped to prevent or treat bone infections in patients with complex limb injuries, which can be a major cause of disability. We hope that that the success of this treatment in Gaza and the valuable data collected by Shahd and Mohammed in partnership with two UK medics, Will Groom from Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital, and Alex Vris Royal London Hospital, will help ensure surgeons working in other contexts will be able to provide similar limb-saving care to their patients.
After the conference we caught up with Shahd and Mohammed, to get an update on the urgent needs of patients with complex limb injuries in Gaza and how, with your support, we can continue to save limbs:
Please consider making a donation today, to support MAP’s vital limb reconstruction work in Gaza:
