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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgeon Paul McMaster is just back from Syria where he treated the wounded in an operating theatre set up in a cave and then a farm. He writes:
I FLEW INTO Turkey, and then we went up to the low mountains near the border, where we were picked up by a guide who took us through the forests and hills and into Syria. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has four surgical teams working in the conflict zone in the northwest of Syria. Our team was working in a cave. We went in through a very small entrance. Inside, there was an inflatable operating tent and six emergency beds.
Everything took place in that area, and it was often hectic and difficult for people to move around. Still, it was remarkable to have created a sterile environment, with all the right surgical equipment, in what was essentially a dusty chalk cave. We were staying 15 minutes away in a very small village. Most of us were sleeping on the floor in the basement room of the mosque. The villagers were happy for us to be there. Every day a lady in the village cooked a whole lot of flat bread, so we lived on that, and beans.
Quite a lot of the population had left the area for refugee camps on the other side of the border with Turkey. But there are still significant numbers of older people, women and children remaining, and these are the areas that are being rocketed and bombed from helicopters.
Helicopter gunships
The helicopters travel around slowly and hover over towns before dropping large bombs, and these things cascade down and cause an enormous blast and destroy buildings. The bombing of the towns and villages was happening every day. When they explode in the mountains, the bombs create enormous explosions of sound which reverberate through the hills and are clearly very frightening for people. On our last morning in the cave, several landed within a couple of hundred metres of us, shaking the cave and bringing down dust. You didn’t quite know whether you were better off outside or inside. It’s very unsettling for everybody, especially for wounded patients and children.
In our team there was a surgeon, an anaesthetist, an emergency nurse, two doctors, a Syrian nurse in her early 30s, who was just inspirational – never tired, always organised, always smiling – and about 11 young women from the villages who we were slowly training to do basic nursing.
Civilian patients
The majority of our patients were civilians – old people, women, children, babies. Many had been wounded in bombings and had shrapnel injuries. Sometimes the injuries weren’t physically serious, but emotionally and psychologically they were very damaging indeed.
One night we were called in and there were two distraught women with three screaming babies. Their house had been literally demolished by a bomb, and these children had shrapnel wounds to their faces – the wounds were not life threatening, but they were in great distress and anguish. Another night a man in his late 30s was brought in by a very excitable crowd of fighters. He’d been shot through his chest, we had very limited blood supplies and his condition was so unstable that I doubted he’d make it through the night. But he pulled through, and the determination he showed was quite remarkable.
I remember another man who came in with severe shrapnel wounds to his leg. The blast had gone through his leg and damaged the main nerve, but not the main blood vessel. He had lost two or three of his family in the blast. We operated on him, but afterwards he lost all motivation to get better – he’d lost his home, he’d lost many of his family, and he faced a potentially crippling injury. It’s really very difficult for people. Over the last five or six weeks, we did about 100 operations and treated many more casualties. We also saw diabetics who had run out of medication, children with asthma, women who needed caesarean sections.
No access to healthcare
These people have had no access to effective healthcare for over a year. Some people might be able to make it over the mountains to Turkey to get treatment, but for many that’s just not an option. When you’re faced with casualties, the surgery is fairly straightforward. You do what’s called damage limitation surgery to stop haemorrhages and deal with damaged internal organs. The difficulty came when we moved to the reconstructive phase – things like physiotherapy and rehabilitation and more complex orthopaedics – this was work we just couldn’t do in the cave.
You can get overwhelmed. When it became fairly clear that medically we were struggling to cope with the patients in the cave, we closed it and transferred our patients and the team to a new location. It was a farm – so not a great upgrade.
The new hospital was a long, open building, and in the space of just four or five days, the logisticians managed to create an inflatable operating theatre, an emergency triage area, a sterilisation unit, an outpatient consulting area, and an inpatient and recovery area – it was a staggering achievement. It wasn’t perfect, it still looked a bit like a farm, but it created much more space to treat casualties. We moved half the patients on Thursday and the rest on Friday, and by Saturday we were operating in the new location.
Danger from above
I’ve worked in many difficult places with MSF – war zones like Sri Lanka, Ivory Coast and Somalia – but while in those countries it was dangerous on the ground, in Syria the danger always comes from the air. It’s a much more oppressive type of danger, having a helicopter hovering in the sky above you. Many of the towns are like ghost towns, with the buildings blasted or destroyed. There’s a hopeless, desperate air about the place. Most people are living in cellars. They’ve had no electricity for eight or nine months.
It’s very bleak indeed and winter is beginning now. I think people are really going to struggle, and the most vulnerable will struggle most. For the civilian population, trying to light little fires in their basements, it’s going to be a very long, hard, cold, dangerous winter.
(Via MSF)
The MSF Ireland office was set up in 2006, after several MSF offices abroad noticed a rising number of applications from skilled, prospective Irish volunteers, from both medical and non-medical backgrounds. Find out more here.
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The earth have considerably cleaned itself the last 7 weeks, carbon emissions must have gone down. ie taxation isn’t the solution
@MyDreamEscapade:
“Fewer fights in pubs in the last 7 weeks, bouncers aren’t the solution”
You know eventually people will start traveling again, yeah?
@MyDreamEscapade: you must be joking? We’ve actual scientists monitoring this around the world, maybe ask them before asserting a false opinion into a contents section?
@MyDreamEscapade: perhaps increased taxes on a general population can reduce the spread of the coronaviris
@MyDreamEscapade: pollution has gone done 4% because of covid that’s basically saying everything is stopped. The 7% target is not only unrealistic its delusional the greens should know better making themselves look like complete fools with that target.
@ben: planes flying empty until mid march. Buses and rail still running. Workers still driving cars and planet still eating the same level of meat. Homes still being heated by fossil fuels. How delusional do you need to be to think everything has stopped?
@MyDreamEscapade: Right so well
Just keep introducing appalling pandemics shall we?
What an utterly daft comment.
@Kev: how does carbon tax save the environment?
@MyDreamEscapade: So what is your solution ? A pandemic every couple of years ? Keep a majority off work and in there homes for a few months every year ? Carbon Taxes are fine, but only if ringfence for their intended purpose. Slapping an extra charge on a pensioners couple of bags a coal a week is designed to encourage them to invest in more efficient and environmentally friendly heating systems ? Utter boIIox !! Why not start a fund and scheme where people can borrow to install more efficient appliances and system, with repayments added to their ESB networks standing charge with a nominal interest rate. Savings made would cover the repayments and repayments plus nominal interest would mean it costs the Government nothing in the long term. But no, the answer is apparently scrapping every bit of tax available from struggling pensioners and low income workers.
I know…and carbon footprints will increase but what does taxation do? Companies are willing to falsify results to meet the criteria. And willing to take the fall…
@ben: they know that but hope they will be met somewhere in between that is still not realistic
@Tommy Roche: there/their. Yea, it was spellcheck. Just heading off the inevitable assault by the enraged and deeply offended grammar Nazis.
@Tommy Roche: didn’t say that sir…
@: and fighting too! Signed, A Bouncer
@MyDreamEscapade: they don’t realise that Ireland is a cold wet country with long dark cold wet winter nights
@MyDreamEscapade: You’re correct. Misread your comment.
Greens and FFG = Taxes galore…
@Gary O CONNOR: taxes are keeping us going. Taxes will always be here, question is what will they fund and how they will be structured.
@Gary O CONNOR: You clearly know nothing about politics. FFFG are traditionally anti taxation.
@Shazam37:
Anti-tax? All the taxes we have to date come from either FF or FG.
We had no other party governing for the last 100 years.
@Dean: As centre right parties they would be considered to have low tax policies in comparison to left wing ideology.
@Shazam37: Michael noonan brought in and increased taxes that were already there a total of 22. Enda Kenny didn’t get the name count taxula for nothing!!!
@Shazam37: and yyyyeeeeeeet.. since 2008 I’m only paying everything twice in PRSI and a pension levy and an arse scratch tax and a tax to live in a house 40km from where I work and I wont even tell ya how much I pay to drive to work from my taxed house in my taxed car and insurance with a 2% tax to pay for ff fg buddies who went bust insuraming other people. They would suck the Sh** right out of ya at the end of the day if they could.
@NotMyIreland:
Centre right parties consider low tax but for who??
Left parties want low tax for the low earners, while wanting high tax for the high earners (those who actually have money).
Whereas ff/fg want high tax for the low earners, and low tax for the high earners.
@NotMyIreland: only above a certain level of wealth and income. They both nail the middle ground.
@Dean: do you know anything about the parties at all? Seriously? Do you know anything about left/right wing ideologies or how the parties prefer to govern?
@Brendan Harlowe: What absolute ignorant horse manure.
You do realise that FFFG and their “spend it when we have it” low tax nonsense is what bankrupted the country – hence the USC for example.
Typical Irish people – they want the sun moon and stars and want to pay for nothing. And what do we get ? Wee get politicians offering the sun moon and stars and no tax raises and suddenly AS IF BY MAGIC – were 200 BILLION IN DEBT.
Grow up.
@Liam O Connor: never heard that name before.
@Gary O CONNOR: Well organised ticks in your media manipulation.
@Gary O CONNOR: The SF media manipulation crew give you the run instead of the Risen. Risible Risen gets benched for numbers so it can be said – look it can be organised as he only got 40 / 50 ticks .
@Dean: the top 10% of earners in Ireland already pay over 60% of tax…time to cut spending and tax before it’s too late
@David Glynn: There is something badly wrong in a country when up to 75% of someones wages eventually ends up back in the govts hands. There are too many people pulling from the one pot and business and companies have too many ways they can claim back taxes so the 12% is nowhere near whats really paid. Yes of course they should get some tax breaks but not to the extent where their tax burden is virtually 0. Our public service is extremely top heavy and overpaid and i am not talking about frontline staff and legacy service pensions for these is breaking the country.There has to be radical change in the face of whats to come but that wont happen with FF and FG. Nobody needs 126000 a year state pension half that is more than enough but you know what they say about pigs at a trough.
The established parties already pursue a relatively green enough agenda. What is the point in this party existing? Aside from putting more diesels on the streets
@Vin:
ah here come on, the big parties pay lip service. Carbon tax was meant to fund public transport, it doesn’t work by itself. Unfortunately for the Greens, FF caught on fast they could introduce a new tax and let the Greens take the blame. Did they build better public transport? Not a chance.
The Greens have learned from their mistakes I hope. Coalition with FFG simply won’t work.
@Vin: no they don’t, hence why they exist. Climate change can be the biggest issue facing us & our kids lifetimes, or it can be tackled before we face the worst of it. Put your political civil war mentality to one side for a second
@Kev: I’m not loyal to any party. Weird that you feel compelled to plug in something so irrelevant
@Kev: but thanks for the cheaper diesel. Great wee party
The Green party, same one in with #FF when they wrecked the country.
@Peter Jo:
It’s funny how the Greens seem to take more blame for the crash than FF. They were a minority without any real power.
Minority parties in a coalition hold a great deal of power. They can pull the government down any time they feel like it. The major party is more than aware of this.
Than was is the point of them going into a government this time .F.F.rang circles around the the last time …but still they were part of a government that brought this country to it’s knees. Imagine what FFG will do to them. Vareadkar, Martin, Ryan Three Taoiseachts running a three ring circus . Bad enough FFG but add the Greens to it Sweet Jesus.
@: Shoulda collapsed Biffo!
@Bluepoolroad:
I agree, I’m hesitant to vote for greens on this basis. I gave them my vote last time around and if they do coalition again, keeping Murphy as housing minister, I’ll blacklist them with labour
It’s definitely “unachievable” when the farming lobby influence your every move anyway, Denis.
Just because you couldn’t come up with a Climate plan worth a jot when you were minister (because of the powerful special interests behind you), that doesn’t mean nobody else can either.
@ihcalaM: I honestly have a bit more contempt for all the western independent groups, much more so than FG or FF. They represent only the interests of farmers and the lads who want to keep hare coursing going. That’s county level politics, you have to rise above that in the Dail.
@ihcalaM: it’s silly to attribute emissions from farming solely to us. Large parts of our agricultural produce is exported but the downsides are only attributed to us rather than where the produce is consumed. It makes sense for us to produce as much food as we can and export to regions that can’t grow as easily as us.
@Terrence Edwards: They represent the interests of the constituency they represent. As they should. That’s why each constituency elects their TD’s, to be their voice in the Dail.
@ihcalaM: when Mr Ryan was Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, he fought hard for tax breaks for diesel engines. He also flip flopped on his support for the Shell to Sea campaign -having stood with protesters before getting his Ministership and pat on the head off Bertie. So, perhaps he shouldn’t be let near the climate plan either
@Gordon Comstock: They are attributed to us as it is in Ireland that the majority of the emissions take place.
@JimmyMc: This diesel thing is getting so tiresome, Jimmy. Based on the evidence available at the time, diesel was a ‘cleaner’ fuel and it was on that basis the Greens (and many other people) promoted its use. When it emerged that car companies were deceiving scientists and regulators about the environmental impacts of their cars, this was no longer an evidence-based policy.
I suppose you could feel it in your gut all along that diesel was filthy, but the rest of us like to change our views based on the science. If you’re going to blame anyone, then it should be VW and their ilk, not the Greens who acted in good faith.
@ihcalaM: the yellow vests in the French riots had diesel as one of their protests. Diesel concept of been greener, sold with tax rebates. Low and behold, they start looking at No2 emmisions and the excise goes through the roof. Same happening here
@ihcalaM: any comment on his flip flop on his support for the Shell to Sea campaign when Bertie made him Minister?
@JimmyMc: except modern Diesel’s are incredibly green, they burn nearly half the fuel of an equivalent petrol. They just need to be limited from going into city centres. Most diesel users are on rural inter urban roads anyway.
@NotMyIreland: if we stopped producing beef for the Saudi market do you think overall emissions would increase or decrease when they started farming their own beef instead? It’s a stupid way of calculating things.
@ihcalaM: so Ryan basically sold us lies about diesel without doing the research or verification. At least those of us with window stills won’t starve with all the lettece we can grow.
@Chris Mc: No. That’s not true. The research said that he was right, at the time. The companies lied. He, and everyone else with a Green agenda in Europe, was working off the information they had. How was he supposed to account for fraud from the likes of VW? Re-read what I wrote.
@JimmyMc: I think it was a bad decision from him, and it’s one of the main problems I have with his leadership of the Greens – I don’t think he’s got much integrity, the Shell issue really highlights that.
Now having said that, I do think he has some good ideas, particularly with respect to revamping Irish agriculture and biodiversity (who knows if he came up with them, but you know what I mean). He’s ambitious and I’m afraid we need ambition if we’re going to get anywhere with our emissions targets.
I would trust him a lot more as Minister for the Environment than I would the likes of Naughton, who is basically an agri-stooge. He’s not in any way perfect or close to it, though, I accept that.
@ihcalaM: so if the cigarette companies told him smoking is good for you he’d buy that too?
@Chris Mc: That’s really too daft a question to reply to, but it wasn’t companies *telling* Ryan about diesel’s benefits, it was the scientific consensus at the time. The companies were falsifying their data to evade regulatory and scientific scrutiny, so again, that’s their fault. Blaming Eamon Ryan for it makes you look silly in the extreme.
Cigarette companies were not falsifying data to get away from scrutiny, they were hand in glove with politicians and scientists at the time and suppressed opposition to their products aggressively when evidence began to emerge. They’re not the same. Eamon Ryan wasn’t paid off by VW to keep quiet.
Green party in government salads for everyone in the country on Eamon
@Niall Lee: looks like half the country has taken on his great suggestions. . Seeds, spuds, onion sets, lettuce plants extremely hard to get. Everyone around us has something planted. And it’s funny, the country folk who ridiculed him are the very ones who could easily keep themselves in veg most of the time.
@Niall Lee: Eamon looks mad, Was he in Fr Ted.
Looking forward to the greens implementing green taxes in a recession. I’m a full believer in the environment and that we need to do something to protect it but sick and tired of this mentality that joe soap must pay for it. We already pay hundreds of million a year in carbon tax but is it ring fenced? I doubt it. So not willing to pay anymore tax including SF taxes. My vote in the new GE will go to the party that won’t tax more. Not sure there will be any. Happy to pay what I’m paying but no more.
Greens = Outlandish tax
The greens would have us all riding penny-farthings and living in mud huts. I sincerely hope they don’t get into government again.
@Adam Conroy: By that comment to you mean riding bicycles and living in more eco friendly houses?
What’s your problem with that ?
@Adam Conroy: and social distancing goes out the window when people are sharing one car between 4 families.
Rather than having a nice comfortable majority to keep them all safe from the citizens for 5 years, it would be more beneficial for all the citizens if FFFG formed a minority Govt and justified their policies to the other parties rather than bulldozing their way through Govt.
Happens in other countries, why do our politicians need comfort and total security.
@Gerry Ryan: Pensions for the lads, have to get that legal threshold.
@Gerry Ryan: Because we have independents prepared to do what they want to suit themselves and not the entire community.
They are the Me Fein party. The most dangerous of all.
The larger parties will make deals and could do ut but if a motion is worded a certain way they would have to vote against the government and bring it down.
Exactly what happened the last time
FFFG and the Greens god help Ireland
Worst thing that can happen is the green party coming on board,the economy will be up sh#t Creek enough without these wanting to pile more taxes on when we eventually do get back to a bit of normality!
@Tara Murphy: so you just want to go back to appalling traffic not transport infrastructure inequality and dreadful over priced services?
That’s normality.
@Shazam37: Taxing everything is not the answer. There’s too many people in the world that’s the reality.
@Shazam37: Eamonn is that you?
@Tara Murphy: oh so your answer is more pandemics?
Too many people in the world. Why don’t you sod off so?
Funny how people who complain about over population never really think THEY are the problem.
@Shazam37: ah think you need a nice long walk to ease your frustrations.
@Tara Murphy: I need fewer idiots in the world. You should move to the UK you’d do well there.
The problem with the Green Party is they are too corporate; they make the average joe pay for everything while not tackling the real polluters (ie big businesses).
And we thought that Covid 19 was the worst thing to happen in 2020….
How about reducing poverty 7% year on year instead of hugging trees?
Greens part of coalition that cut minimum wage during last crisis.They haven’t gone away.
Naughten may run as an independent, but he’s more FG than FG itself. Answering the greens demands on Leos behalf methinks…
@The Risen: Waffle Waffle.
FG FF will not change their markets based ideologies, they will say they will to get into government, but they wont,their policies are identical and will take priority in every budget and policy decision,anyone propping them up will be thrown crumbs,and they will also be thrown under the bus.
@@mdmak33: Can anybody translate this?
@Peter Clancy: I’m schtuck myself at the « markets-based ideologies » bit. Maybe if we all worked for the State and stayed at home, he’d be happy?
7% is tiny, calling it “impossible” is just the farming mouthpieces informing everyone they have zero intention to make any effort or concession for the environment.
@Rochelle: its 7% a year.. that’s going to hurt and hurt rural Ireland really badly.
@Karl Mc Cauley: then rural Ireland will have insentive to change won’t it?
@Karl Mc Cauley: Every other country seems to be managing it. Denmark for example had considerably higher emissions than us in 2005 but now are much lower. We’re moving slower than those around us on green issues.
@Rochelle: What the f do you know about farming I would hazard a guess and say nothing. Farming for the most part in Ireland is grassland based and virtually carbon nuetral. Our govt in their wisdom have offset our grasslands versus our industrial carbon emissions and with vegans also using the global warming excuse to pour vitriol over any business that produces meat our cows have become the carbon devils. A lot of our carbon emissions are imported with the goods we buy and not produced here at all its all a paperwork exercise across the world passing emissions from more industrialsed larger countries onto others under the guise of you want the goods take the carbon as well. And we cant export the carbon with our agricultural products so we are stung on both sides
If a 7% reduction is realistically achievable with the pending recession, great…. It’s not though.
@David Gray: so well do our bit if everything is perfect – otherwise no?
Now it’s a perfect time. Just like during the last recession. Fewer people at work and on the roads – great time to move away from a motorist based model of transport for example. Great time to tax diesel and petrol when it’s been wiped out in the markets.
Plenty of opportunity to make it a greener country now if we have the wit to ignore people who want things to stay the Same.
@David Gray: A deep recession is the perfect time to introduce fundamental changes to how we live and how are economy works. When your rebuilding from scratch, rebuild it so its environmentally sound and sustainable
@Shazam37: Heard a very good suggestion the other day. Allow a tax deduction to companies to cover the cost of remote working software and infrastructure if they agree to keep the people at home who are currrently working from there after the lockdown is lifted, cutting emissions and reducing the burden on public transport.
@The Risen: not sure the cost would need to be covered – the savings in electricity water fruits supplies broadband space and then over time the leases would be colossal for business.
This could easily be the new norm when business realises how much they save
@Shazam37: Selfish thinking but that’s not unusual with the green way of thinking especially around transport.
Not everybody wants or can cycle everywhere or anywhere.
Forget them, make noise about caring but in fact push the tree hugging vegan life for all.
What was their explanation for saying it was unachievable?
@Lad: “we are independents and we get nothing done”
@Lad: “The farmer lobby that got me into this position are relying on me to keep emissions tariffs as low as possible or they will back my opponent in the next election”
What has Green to say to the Farmers of Ireland now He should not be allowed near the Gov Top Table
@pat seery: to hell with them.
perfect picture on how not to wear a mask….
@SkylineSi: Or a cycling helmet but they say one thing and do another
the long green mile!
There is a Programme on Netflix which debunks the whole theology of the Wind worshippers and the Green Solar energy buff Its by yer man Moore . well worth a look
its 7% you old bags of coal
Stand your ground Eamon!
God help us, is there no end to the misery these days?
What are Greens going to do about pension age, social welfare, private renting, insurance and many more real issues, my own answer to this is nothing, the Greens are just a mix of FG and FF, they will run with this government until they run out of road, so when it collapses which it will, them and Labour will be party’s of the past.
Tax the airlines . They pay no tax on aviation fuel. Tax shipping. Tax the companies but Jeeeeessuuuuss dont let the greens in again who love taxing us all out of existence. More tax on fuel next winter for the elderly. Nothing for ryanair flying every hen and stag party to Amsterdam .
I hope that we end up having a future general election to decide this, but that said the green party have a history of playing hard to get, before going into coalition based on “green initiatives”.
Only to subsequently prop up the coalition even though those initiatives never materialised, because they become so enamoured with being minister for this or that, the celebrity of being recognised, media attention and not least the financial rewards. Exactly the same goes for many independents too.
I hope not , last time we had them, they destroyed the country.
Greens are you for railways or greenways on our railways
@Trevor: it drives me mad that we have flat straight routes between every major town in Ireland once used for rail that would be perfect for, you’ve guessed it, rail, but we pour tarmac and concrete on them instead.
@Daniel Lehane: No we dont,
Have a good feeling that we will have 3 great parties full of talent to dig us out of this crisis we were placed in through no fault of our own and to map out a great future for our country/people.
@Imagine !: The most expensive there ring circus in the world. Eamon Ryan a Blueshirt on a bike. He certainly will be at home with FFG.
While the rest of the country hopes they don’t
Ryan has made demands that will be very difficult to implement but when government talks break down he can say they tried unlike the other left wing parties (so far). The Regional Independents probably provide a more stable option than the greens who are just perfect… as we recently learned…. Perfect is the enemy of the Good.
Don’t do it greens you will be hammered next time around if you join a government without a proper mandate.
@Ciaran Burke: the next election is irrelevant. Youre elected to govern now – not in 10 years
Looking forward to social distancing from wolves..
Anyone see videos of all the airplanes that have been grounded. Also look at videos off the coast of America with all the oil tankers full and sitting there being used as storage because people aren’t consuming it. If we it this county could switch to electric transport and then sort out our electricity generation with out using fossil fuels we’d go along way. Start using glass bottles and reusable plastic boxes instead of cardboard… little things.
Go for it Greens . You were elected for change. Nothing to gain by waiting 5 years. Everything to lose.
have your say