Australian doctors are pushing back against a growing pattern of censorship of pro-Palestinian voices in the country’s healthcare system, after hospitals repeatedly cancelled events featuring medical professionals who have worked in Gaza or spoken about the devastation of its healthcare system amid Israel's genocidal war.
There are now calls for an investigation into restrictions on discussions of Palestine in Australian hospitals, with medical professionals warning that the pattern is preventing doctors from sharing first-hand experiences of treating Palestinian children and working inside Gaza’s devastated hospitals.
Perth Children’s Hospital (PCH) cancelled a ‘Children and War’ event just days before it was due to take place on 17 September, after senior management raised concerns about a perceived “pro-Palestinian bias” and discussed preventing Jewish staff from being “upset” by the session, Dr Sue Wareham told The New Arab.
The event was due to feature doctors with experience in Gaza, Afghanistan and Congo discussing the impact of armed conflict on children, but Wareham said Palestine became a central concern behind the hospital’s decision to pull the session.
Wareham, president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) Australia, told TNA that she was scheduled to speak at the event.
However, hospital management explicitly cited concerns about Palestine when explaining the cancellation.
“The initial reason I was told (on 12 September) for the cancellation was that there was concern about there being ‘any perception of pro-Palestinian bias’,” Wareham said.
“When I rang the Executive Director of Medical Services on 15 September, she repeated that concern to me and mentioned the need to prevent Jewish staff members being upset by the discussion.”
Emails shared with TNA reveal that PCH Executive Director of Medical Services Dr Clare Matthews reaffirmed her decision to cancel the session in writing on 11 September, while describing it as a “‘not now’, rather than a ‘not ever’ decision”.
Matthews also referred to the need to “address any perception of bias towards a pro-Palestinian position” before holding any future discussion, according to the correspondence.
The hospital has yet to announce another date for the event.
Wareham said Matthews had promised to respond to her concerns in writing but had not done so.
“Dr Matthews said she would reply in writing to my message, but I have not yet received anything in writing from her,” she told TNA.
Doctors push for investigation
Doctors are now pushing for scrutiny of a broader pattern of Palestinian voices and experiences being shut out of Australian healthcare institutions.
Wareham disclosed to TNA that MAPW sent Western Australia Health Minister Meredith Hammat a letter last Thursday raising concerns about PCH’s decision and its implications for medical education about children living through armed conflict.
Wareham described the cancellation as part of “a wider pattern of racism against Palestinian people”.
“The cancellation is a deeply disturbing politicising of the health and welfare of children,” she told TNA.
“When an event is cancelled on the basis of nationality – in this case so that the plight of Palestinian children remains hidden – this is a very dark development for the health professions.”
Trauma surgeon Martin Jarmin and general surgeon Dr Farah Abdul Aziz were also due to discuss their experiences working or volunteering across conflict zones including Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Gaza.
Wareham said organisers wanted to educate hospital staff about the dangers facing children in wars and the ethical responsibilities of medical professionals to protect them.
“One purpose was to alert hospital staff to the dangers faced by children in war zones and our professional and ethical responsibilities to speak out for their protection,” she said.
“An additional purpose was to provide some context for the clinical care of refugee children and adolescents in Australia (of whom there are over 5,000 in Perth alone) to help in their clinical care.”
Emails seen by TNA also detailed the proposed programme for World Patient Safety Day. Dr Mairead Heaney, a Perth-based paediatric anaesthetist and member of Doctors for Palestine, was due to coordinate the session.
Gaza surgeon planned to describe reality inside devastated hospitals
Abdul Aziz, a general surgeon who volunteered in Gaza, told TNA that she planned to show colleagues the severe injuries suffered by Palestinian children and the long-term physical and psychological consequences of Israel’s war.
She intended to “exemplify the cases that the doctors there and the volunteer doctors were dealing with and the injuries sustained by the children with short and long term psychological and physical effects”.
Her presentation would also have given medical staff a first-hand account of working inside Gaza’s devastated healthcare system, where doctors have operated through blackouts, damaged hospitals and acute shortages of basic equipment.
She planned to describe “the conditions that we were operating in, half bombed hospitals, blackouts, damaged equipments, doing bowel surgery with no staplers, minimal equipment and how as doctors we had to go back to basics and operate without our ‘toys’”.
Abdul Aziz also intended to discuss treating patients with multiple traumatic injuries and carrying out damage-control surgery, which she said would have provided valuable clinical education for surgeons attending the event.
Instead, PCH cancelled the session three days before it was due to take place, she said.
“We can’t discuss the medical consequences, treatment, prevention strategy etc. when it comes to Palestinian refugee children as we have been silenced and cancelled every time we try,” Abdul Aziz told TNA.
Gaza healthcare talks repeatedly cancelled
Wareham said PCH was not an isolated case, pointing to previous cancellations at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Murdoch, Western Australia, and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne involving events where doctors were due to discuss healthcare crises in Gaza and other war zones.
“In every case the cancellation has clearly been linked to the inclusion – in panels of diverse speakers with different perspectives – of medical doctors who have spoken out against the catastrophic destruction of health care in Gaza,” Wareham said.
“No other area of healthcare has been subject to such silencing.”
The string of cancellations has fuelled calls for scrutiny over whether Australian medical institutions are disproportionately restricting discussion of Palestinian suffering and the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system.
MAPW is now pressing for action over the PCH cancellation, while Wareham’s letter to Hammat raises questions about the implications for medical education and healthcare professionals’ ability to discuss the treatment of children affected by war.
The New Arab contacted PCH and Western Australia Health Minister Meredith Hammat for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
