Candles in the Darkness

Last night I joined a vigil for Gaza outside the BBC on Oxford Road in Manchester. Feelings of helplessness often overtake me in the face of such injustice and misuse of power. But holding a candle in the cold and dark last night, with around a hundred other people who shared by feelings of outrage, sadness and disgust, and hoped for an end to the killing and a peaceful future felt powerful.



Other people I knew had turned up, including a friend of Nick's who I had never met before. He is Gazan, studying for an MD in Manchester. His parents had come to visit him recently and were still with him, but the rest of his family remained in Gaza. I struggled to imagine what that must feel like. He had had some contact with them, and everyone was okay so far. Then he introduced us to his friend, M. M had a pale and sad face, that seemed somehow familiar. I wondered if I had met him before. A told us that one of M's family members had been killed today in the raids. I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. M said that he had just spoken with his family on the phone a few minutes ago, he said the bombs were falling now. All four of us were silent. The reality of this was speaking to us in the silence. Our candles kept being blown out by the passing buses, but we always found someone else's candle to re-light from. I thought about just how similar to campaigning and fighting for justice holding a lit candle on the street in wintertime is.

End the Killing in Gaza

Things you can do:

1) Write to your MP - they're on their Christmas holidays (conveniently), but still write to them, phone them and generally pester them. Find out their contact details on the Write to Them website.

2) Write to the Foreign Secretary on this email address - private.office@fco.gov.uk

3) Fax the Prime Minister +442079250918

4) Write to the Labour Party - fill in this form online http://www.labour.org.uk/contact

5) Go to to a Protest:

LONDON
Tuesday 30 December, 2 - 4pm
Outside Israeli Embassy, Kensington High Street, London, W4.
Nearest tube Kensingston High Street (turn right out of tube station and walk along the main road.
Wednesday 31 December, 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy
Thursday 1 January 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy
SATURDAY 3 JANUARY. DEMONSTRATION AND RALLY. Assemble 2pm Parliament Square, W1. Nearest tube Westminster

MANCHESTER
Tuesday 30 5pm, BBC Oxford Road, there will be vigils all week and a protest on Saturday 3rd January.

GLASGOW
Saturday 3rd January 12noon
Outside Lloyds TSB, St Vincent Street and then assemble for demo at Blytheswood Square, 2pm

EDINBURGH
Foot of the Mound, Princes Street
Saturday 3rd January, 12noon.

CARDIFF
Tuesday 30 December 12 to 1pm. Outside Cardiff Market/ St John’s Church, the Hayes
Wednesday 31 December New Year Vigil. Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street

LEEDS
Tuesday 30 4.30pm-6pm, Outside art gallery, Headrow

BRISTOL
Centre, opposite the Hippodrome, Tuesday - Friday 5.00 - 6.00 and Saturday 3.00 - 4.00.

NOTTINGHAM
Tuesday 30 December 12 noon, Market Square

SOUTHAMPTON
Tuesday 30 December 12 to 2pm, West Quay Entrance, High Street

HULL
Saturday 3 January, 11am. Queen Victoria Square.

BRADFORD
Monday 29 December 2pm, Centenary Square. We will provide leaflets please bring placards, banners etc or bring with you marker pens and large size paper.

PORTSMOUTH
Saturday 3 January 11am, Guildhall Square

Slaughter in Gaza

The western world was sitting back after a big turkey dinner and too many glasses of wine. They reached for the remote to find another cheesey Christmas special to help them through the digestion of too many excesses. I'm not sure how many of them flicked to the news channel for a moment and discovered the horror that was being unleashed on a tiny overcrowded strip of land, far away somewhere hot and dusty where Santa doesn't go.

But it was happening. The raids began on Saturday morning, the 27th of December. Israeli bomber and helicopter gunships targeted police stations, Khan Younis and Rafah refugee camps, the Gaza city port and civilian targets. The first wave killed 200 people. Today is the fourth day of the massacre. At least 364 Palestinians have died so far. Thousands more have been injured, lost loved ones and their homes.

The justification that Israel gives for attacking Gaza is the rockets that have been fired from within Gaza into Israel. 9 Israelis have been killed by Gazan rockets since September 2005. In the same period at least 1400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. I will never believe that there is justification for violence. It will never be right for Palestinians to fire rockets into Israel, even if they kill fewer people than are killed by Israeli forces. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. But in this case it's not even an eye for an eye. My friend calculated that 3 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in 2008, and then Israel killed 345 Palestinians in 3 days. Therefore 1 Israeli = 115 Palestinians. When it comes to the Palestinians trying to rise against the Israeli oppressor, I come closer to understanding the motivation for violence than I ever thought I could.

So with this justification you would be expecting that Israel would be very sure that they could definitely catch the bad guys who've been firing rockets into their territory. But the dead are old men, old women, children... Innocents who have no affiliation to any militant groups. I guess they have to pay the price for falling under the same catgetory as those who fire rockets. It's just a pity it's such a broad category: Palestinian.



A home was destroyed while eleven family members slept inside. Five of the daughters died when the house collapsed on them. They were Tahrir 17, Ikram 15, Samer 13, Dina 8 and Jawahar, 4 years old. The Guardian Newspaper wrote this about their father:

Anwar, 40, sat in another house where a mourning tent had been set up. He was pale and still suffering from serious injuries to his head, his shoulder and his hands. But like many other patients in Gaza he had been made to leave an overcrowded hospital to make way for the dying. Yesterday his house was a pile of rubble: collapsed walls and the occasional piece of furniture exposed to the sky. He spoke bitterly of his daughters' deaths. "We are civilians. I don't belong to any faction, I don't support Fatah or Hamas, I'm just a Palestinian. They are punishing us all, civilians and militants. What is the guilt of the civilian?" Like many men in Gaza, Anwar has no job, and like all in the camp he relies on food handouts from the UN and other charity support to survive.

"If the dead here were Israelis, you would see the whole world condemning and responding. But why is no one condemning this action? Aren't we human beings?" he said. "We are living in our land, we didn't take it from the Israelis. We are fighting for our rights. One day we will get them back."

This latest Israeli atrocity comes after 18 months of the Israeli siege and blockade of Gaza, which has crippled the Gazan economy and caused starvation and malnourishment throughout Gaza. The Israeli blockade has brought to a virtual halt food, fuel, medical supplies and other necessities and prevented UN and medical personnel from entering Gaza. This is the current situation in a local hospital, as reported by the organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians:

There were mothers, fathers looking for children, looking for relatives. Everyone was confused and seeking support. Mothers were crying, people were asking about relatives, the medical team was confused.

Some people were just lying there, some were screaming, some were very, very angry. There were a lot of injured arriving, ambulances coming in and out. The injured were coming by private cars and they were being left wherever. You could see blood here and there.

There is talk [the Israeli air strikes] were targeting the police and security forces but in Shifa hospital, I saw many, many civilians, some dead, some injured, some were children, some were women, some were elderly people.

There are people without their legs in very severe pain. The doctors and nurses were trying to give them painkillers and to keep them alive. Patients are lying there knowing they've lost their legs. Some were asking God if they could die. They were in a terrible psychological state.

The doctors and nurses were trying to do their best. They discharged all the patients from the chronic diseases ward and from the oncology ward to make way for the injured. They were using whatever they could.

There's no gauze so they are using cotton, which sticks to the wounds. They can't sterilise clothes for the operating theatre. They're using wrong sized syringes. They're working 24 hours. They're referring cases from one hospital to the next. One hospital was running out of anaesthesia. They're also drawing blood and there's no alcohol. This is a disaster.

Already this post is too long. But there are still so many things I haven't covered. The media coverage of these matters is inexcusably biased. The BBC and other mainstream media clearly show bias to the Israeli side by portraying these atrocities as the justifiable retaliation of a sovereign state against terrorists attacking it. I have been closely following the media coverage over the past few days and am sickened that whenever airtime is given to a Gazan reporting on the deaths, casualties and humanitarian situation resulting from these bombings it must be followed by a report from Israel about the dreadful situation Israelis are living. As if this was equal suffering. I do not mean to belittle the fear felt by Israelis living close to Gaza. The fear that a rocket may strike them. But this is not equal and parallel suffering to that the Palestinians are facing in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the most read article on the Guardian website is about Steven Gerrard's assault charges.

Seasonal Offerings

October's air hangs heavy with a sense of culmination and finality. Sometimes frosty carrying the scent of chimney smoke across a park lit by the last rays of indian summer sunshine. Sometimes moist with the scent of rotting leaves, returning to the earth, particle by particle, melting into layers of soil. The summer's sunshine is distilled and concentrated to the deepest oranges, reds and pinks of fallen leaves, every drop falling to the ground and burning like embers of golden fire against the green, the grey, the black of the canvas provided by lawns, fields, pavements and roads. Things are dying, ending their lives. Nights draw in, heading into the dark tunnel of winter.

But alongside rotting, decay, mulch and disintegration, the earth brings forth bumper crops of its finest efforts and full of life. Pumpkins, squash, marrow, beetroot, cauliflower, apples. Final offerings, a farewell gift. And a sense of saving the best til last. No more tentative sprouting salad leaves of spring, tender green vegetables of summer. Concentrated colours and flavours, bold and sensuous contours are autumn's signatures, a final flourish before heading underground to sprout the root vegetables of winter. I want to keep them in my hand, a source of warmth for the cold, dark, colourless, damp months to come. Frantically distilling them down to soups and curries to be frozen as a memoir for a later date. Curried Sweet Potato and Butterbean Soup, Purple Cauliflower and Roquefort, Borscht, Apple Pie with a Cheddar Crust, Cider Vinegar Muffins, Annapurna Daal Bhat... Squash Curry.



And as a I think of these things, pouring over recipe books for what to do with the season's produce... a 6 month old is gazing intently out the window from his seat at my feet. He's in my care for the afternoon and grumbled incessantly until I took him to the window to watch the light flicker through the trees. Mesmerized, he stares contentedly outwards and upwards, calm enough now to be put to rest in his chair by the window, facing out to the world. He's watching the patterns of the golden autumn light filter through the trees as they blow and shake in gusts of wind. He's watching the leaves spiral down from their lofty heights, dancing at ground level before coming to rest on piles on the grass. He's falling asleep with the light dappling his rosy baby face.

And elsewhere I see the culmination of seasons of growth. Day to day watching babies brought into the world, grown in a dark place for months, nourished and cared for and brought forth in a magnificent fashion when they are ripe and ready, I can't help but think of miraculous design, patterns, circles, rhythms, reasons.

But they come at all times of the day and night, all times of the year. And with slightly more risk and effort involved. I've not long finished my allocated week on delivery suite (so named to make it sound less medical than 'labour ward'). A week that I've looked forward to all my medical school career. And I did it in style, with multiple night shifts (including a Sunday night), 16 hour day shifts, lots of cups of coffee and basically wearing myself out. And it was worth it. I saw 8 beautiful babies blink their sticky eyes open to look at the world for the first time, and even managed to 'catch' an additional two myself.

It was a week of thinking, observing and reflecting... some of those thoughts are crystalising and will soon be ripe for publication. If you're interested, stay tuned.

Where's the Consultation?

Another good thing that happened over the summer was the publication of a report called 'Where's the Consultation' by the Global Health Advocacy Project.

In 2004, the Department of Health carried out a public consultation exploring proposals to deny access to primary healthcare to failed asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. The results of this consultation were never published and the department have resisted our attempts to bring them into the public domain.

This report summarises submissions to the Department of Health Consultation 'Proposals to Exclude Overseas Visitors from Eligibility to Free NHS Primary Medical Services'. It also details our ongoing attempts using the Freedom of Information Act to access a complete set of submissions to this important consultation.

To download the document in pdf format, please click here or see the Medsin Website.

The New Rules of the Blog

No blogs for 4 months... oops. And quite a lot has happened, there was the Iranian asylum saga during which I got face to face with the Home Office over an asylum case... (its an ugly face in case you were wondering), the epic trip to France by train (uncomfortable, but environmentally sound... or is it, where do I stand on nuclear?? Hrm...) involving a delicious quantity of rose wine and the best tomatoes I have ever tasted, the holiday in Scotland with swimming in ice cold rivers, the sea and the best seafood ever tasted... (and the rain), the last minute dash to Cheltenham for Greenbelt, and then finally (and ominously) The Return to the study of clinical medicine. Ussain Bolt's awesome 100m sprint was in there somewhere too. And it all went by so quickly.

I've been reluctant to blog. Mostly because my life is dominated by grossly mundane events, most of which take place inside a giant building with lots of beds (not as nice as hotel beds), sick people and not many windows. I have to live here, 1.5 hrs from home in Manchester, start early, finish late, do nights and weekends and spend lots and lots of time in the library.

I'm let out for the occasional day at weekends when I get to look at the outside world. But mostly I'm tired and don't have time to look. Consqequently, my soul has suffered a few little deaths. My guitar is mostly idle against the wall, my books on subjects other than medicine are gathering dust (which I don't have time to clean), my kitchen is lonely and longs to be cooked in, newspapers are unread... and my brain grinds to a halt. So if I were to blog, all there would be to blog about would be medicine. The patients I have seen, the diseases I have learned about, the wicked doctors, the nice doctors, the rude doctors...

Medicine isn't all that bad. I suppose. I mean, I dide choose it for myself after all, so I can't really complain. And people would probably like to hear about it. There is a fascination with the human body, with medicine and with the gruesome tales we medics are capable of, a fascination I can't explain. And I won't play into its hands, because actually, it's all quite boring really.

So perhaps the primary function of this blog from now on will be to force me to think of things other than hospital, patients, examinations, drugs, diseases, and treatments. Each week I will challenge myself to blog you something of a non-medical nature. There will be one exception - I'm reading a lot around pregnancy, childbirth and the medicalisation of what are essentially natural processes. Most of what I'm reading it's at total loggerheads with what the obstetric profession believe. And I'm about to start my Obstetrics training next week. So that could get interesting. But it's more anthropology than medicine, so we'll allow it.

Going Local

It's all change in our shopping habits since my post about supermarkets. I was so unconvinced by my own arguments, that I've pretty much stopped frequenting their hallowed aisles.

Instead, I've been doing our fruit and veg shopping at Unicorn in Chorlton and only buying local
produce. This is a challenge in a period that is traditionally 'hungry' in terms of UK seasonal produce. The winter storage veg (carrots, potatoes, parsnips) are running out and the summer's abundance is yet to burst forth from the fields. Leaving a few meagre greens as the only fresh offerings from the soil.

It all started around the 6th of May. I cycled to Chorlton on my way home from hospital. Unicorn smells good. It's always been one of those places I have wandered around, wide-eyed and wondering at the organic wholesome goodness... longing for the day when I have a wage and can afford to shop there. But no longer. I still have no wage, but I'm going to see what happens if I try and spin out our veggies and wholefoods to the very best of efficiency. Is it really too expensive? We'll see.

So here I was, with my bicylce panniers and my shopping basket, breathing in the aroma of the grains and spices, all organic and all fairly traded. At Unicorn,packaging is kept to a bare minimum and the entire operation is a worker's cooperative. My kinda place. They do import organic vegetables from overseas, but for the purpose of my local organic produce experiment, I would be abstaining from spanish tomatoes and bananas from whoknowswhere. This also meant that my bill would be cheaper, since my food wouldn't have been transported as far.

As I picked a few potatoes and some dirty carrots from sacks, I overheard a parent chastise their child - "NO, you CAN'T have any more sunflower seeds, you've had ENOUGH today". Surely a conversation that could only be overheard in a fairtrade organic wholefoods store in Chorlton. I smiled inside, remembering kids I used to babysit for who had to be bribed into good behaviour with seaweed (Japanese Nori), as they didn't like sweeties.

So that week I came out with delicious tasty baby salad leaves from 3 miles down the road in Sale, carrots from herefordshire, potatoes fom Dundee, rhubarb from somewhere in the UK, leeks from herefordshire and mushroom from Ireland. On top of this, I got some canned tomatoes and some pasata - not from the UK but really, there's not much else to eat at the moment... Ideally, I'd like my local eating to be limited to produce from the North West, but having also been to the farmer's market this week, I still can't find much that comes from my local area and have had to stretch as far north as Dundee and as far south as Hereford.

Also visited the farmer's market that takes place on the 2nd and 4th Friday and Saturday of each month in Picadilly Gardens, Manchester. Not as impressive as I'd hoped, but Hungry Boy and I managed to get some awesome Lancashire cheese made in Goosnargh. It felt really good to buy it straight from the guy who made it. It was really, really tasty. We also bought some bread from Kirby, although I can make our own bread, I do find it difficult to keep up with Hungry Boy's demands.



The following week brought Spring Greens (Sale), Beetroot (Ormskirk - stored from winter) and Chicory (Sale) into our diets. It is becoming more and more exciting to see a new vegetable crop on my visits to the grocery shop. Yesterday there was a new variety of lettuce (Sale) and even CHERRY TOMATOES from Blackpool!!! There was also Spinach and Runner Beans. My day was made. The simple joys of watching the earth turn out new things for us to eat in a timely and sustainable fashion.

So are we just eating vegetables? Pretty much... I'm allowing us to eat some stuff that is not from the UK - mainly staples like grains and pasta. We also have frozen broccoli of dubious origin and a cupboard full of spices. And some of these we still get at the supermarket. Hungry Boy needs fed and pasta is only 19p in Sainsbury's, what you gonna do? And dairy. Unicorn's vegan. This is a great disappointment to me - i'd like to buy local organic milk from them. And local organic eggs. And honey.

I'm trying not to get religiously legalistic with my locavorian tendencies. I'm concentrating on the positives of eating local fruit and veg rather than the negatives of not doing so. I'm still eating out, especially tasty Chinese, and it has yet to become socially acceptable to inform hosts in advance of attending for dinner that you are now a locavore.

Things I made out of this veritable feast of local delicacies included Beetroot and goats cheese salad, Aduki bean pie, Carrot and Lentil Burgers and Macaroni cheese with Spinach and Mushrooms. Yummy yum yummy.

ps - does anyone know how to make chicory taste nice?