"Please do not eradicate my uterus." Tales of a volunteer doctor in combat zones

Ahmed Hamoush

"Sometimes our war in the theater is no less fierce than the war raging on the fronts." That is the conviction that Moroccan doctor Zuhair Lehana is expressing when he visits camps for displaced people and refugees in volatile areas around the globe to help save civilian lives.

Dr. Lahana, a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, chose the voluntary track with associations and specialized bodies to provide support and assistance to those in need in war zones and crises specifically, and was not convinced of dependence on a job between the walls.

He has visited Palestine and the Gaza Strip several times during the Israeli aggressions and visited the Syrian refugee camps in Al-Za'tari and Aleppo. He is also aware of the fact that he almost hears the outbreak of a humanitarian crisis in any place until he prepares his bag for travel to provide medical assistance in his field. , And also visited Libya, India and Afghanistan.

In 2004, the Congo, where he underwent surgery to restore the incurable birth defects, visited the mothers to live a normal life.

He was the head of the clinic of the University of Paris VII, and the position of deputy of the Medical Support Organization in France, a member of the French branch of MSF, but preferred to give a hand to those suffering from the tragedies of war.

Many people wonder how areas suffering from the scourge of fighting need a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, and he answers this with his notes on Facebook, saying that wars, tragedies of refuge and displacement do not prevent people from clinging to life.

If missiles and missiles are taking lives, Dr. Lahana and his companions take life and pass it to safety.

Diamonds
Last December, he traveled to Yemen, and upon arriving at the Karra hospital, in the heavily overcrowded Marib suburbs and with a shortage of doctors and equipment, he was surprised to be invited to follow up the situation of a young woman suffering from postpartum hemorrhage and rupture of the uterus. She soon begged the doctor not to wipe her womb, so as not to waste her family life. "Please do not eradicate my uterus, I do not want my life to break," she said.

The doctor tells that he did the necessary procedures under the supervision of doctors and midwives who want to use the occasion to learn new skills in dealing with difficult situations, succeeded in the repair of uterine ruptures, and drawing a smile on the face of the lady who almost lost her hopes of reproduction again.

Another woman at Marib Hospital, pregnant with twins in the eighth month, discovered that they had died because of a wrong prescription. He had to have a caesarean section to save them and save the mother's life. He then said that he was thinking that he and other volunteer doctors were traveling to such remote places Which suffer from the scourge of war is very important to save the lives of people who, if they survived the bombs and bullets, hardly escape the prescriptions of medical malpractice or lack of medical care from the ground.

Shells
In Yemen, the sounds of missiles and bullets can be heard from afar, even in areas far from the battlefields. While Dr. Lahana appears to be preoccupied with these voices in his region, his Yemeni neighbors continue to practice their daily work.

One day, outside the hospital, he saw two children carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles. This was a scene that greatly influenced him. He was used to Morocco and Europe to watch their peers carry their wallets to school, not to battlefields that claimed the lives of many Children involved.

While touring a number of hospitals, he was surprised by the large number of civilian mine victims, especially children. Human Rights Watch had already announced months ago that landmines in Yemen had killed and maimed civilians, impeded their lives and impeded humanitarian access.

Training
Dr. Lahana's interventions are not limited to emergency surgeries, but are accompanied by doctors and midwives in different stages of surgical operations and medical interventions to acquire skills in dealing with complex situations.

However, he organizes training meetings in the ambulance during pregnancy and obstetrics in all areas visited by a volunteer. During these voluntary operations, he recites the verse "and whoever revived it as if he had revived all the people."

Many midwives and even female doctors need to draw on other experiences and experiences in dealing with the emergency situations posed by wars and insecurity.

The Rohingyas also benefited from Dr. Lahana's experience during his visit to their camps in Bangladesh in November 2017, describing his situation as "impossible to describe".

A year earlier, in 2016, he opened a clinic in Casablanca to provide free treatment for the poor and Syrian and African refugees.

These experiences are different in countries that have been destroyed by wars that are barely ending until they begin. I have taught him that there is a fine line between life and death, and the strength of his relationship with God and faith in destiny and destiny, and assured him that any doctor who travels to these areas is a lifeblood that may save many lives. Innocent people.