By Shevlin Sebastian
Mangalore
native, Shazeer Majeed, a war surgeon talks about his work in Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, Iraq
and Jordan
On
a sunny February morning, in the residential area of Shmeisani in Amman,
Jordan, the Mangalore native Shazeer Majeed looks out of the third-floor
window. He has been in Amman for the past one year as the medical director for
the Reconstructive Surgery Project of Medecins San Frontieres (MSF).
The
organisation brings in war-wounded patients who need reconstructive,
maxillofacial, plastic and orthopaedic surgery from Palestine, Iraq, Yemen as
well as Syrian refugees living in Jordan. “We want to return them to a
near-normal life,” said Shazeer.
But
as he stared out of the window, the image of Noor Abdullah (name changed) came
to his mind. The 14-year-old lived in the town of Ad Dahi in Yemen. He had
found a land mine near his house. He tried to open it because it fetched a good
price with scrap-metal dealers, but it exploded.
The
major injury was to his right hand. Noor was rushed to the emergency room of a
hospital run by MSF. “There were a lot of shrapnel wounds and his forearm had
fractured,” said Shazeer, who is a war surgeon. “The main artery which supplies
blood to the hand was damaged.”
The
boy was in shock. But at the same time, he was aware of his injury. He kept
telling Shazeer, “Please do not amputate my hand.”
At
that moment Shazeer did not have the equipment or the instruments to do
vascular surgery. The instruments were in another MSF project, at Hodeidah, 53
kms away. But within an hour, it was brought to the hospital.
Shazeer
did a graft repair. He took a vein from the leg and used it on the forearm. “We
were able to re-connect the arteries and restore the blood supply, which fixed
the fracture and saved his hand,” said Shazeer, who has done numerous stints in
South Sudan, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Yemen. Within a couple of weeks, Noor was
able to move his fingers and arms. And in four months, he made a complete
recovery.
But
not everybody experiences this recovery. Shazeer admits there are many times
when the patient dies. “But I pick myself up,” he said. “Honestly, we are
putting in 16 or 18-hour days and when we return to our apartments, we just
want to sleep. There is no time to think about victory or defeat in the
operation theatre. Sometimes, after a patient passes away, we immediately begin
work on another patient to save his life.”
There
have been times when Shazeer has worked for over 30 hours at a stretch. This
was during a stint in Yemen. “There was fighting close by,” he said. “We just
kept receiving patients, so we slept when the operation theatre would be
cleaned before the next patient was brought in.”
Shazeer
says that he copes with the job by shutting out thoughts about it as soon as he
leaves the MSF Mission. “Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to remain
calm,” he said.
Sometimes,
the MSF sends its staff to another country for five days, so that they can
recover from the stress and the tension. “So, if you are in Yemen, they will
send you to Djibouti,” said Shazeer.
As
for the patients, most of them are ordinary men, women and children. The
military has its hospital to treat their victims.
Usually,
the people suffer from wounds and injuries which take place when a bomb blast
happens. There are also high-velocity bullet injuries. But not all injuries are
caused by the war between the Saudis, who are allied with the government of
Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthis.
“Sometimes,
bullet injuries happen when there are fights between family members or friends
because Yemen has one of the highest ratios of gun ownership per population in
the world,” said Shazeer. “Everyone carries a gun in Yemen.”
Even
minor injuries can become fatal. Sometimes, the bullet may hit the leg. But if
the hospital is four hours away, the person will bleed to death. Sometimes, the
gunshot may be to the chest but the hospital may be only 20 minutes away. “Then
he will get proper treatment and survive,” said Shazeer.
Most
of the time there are no facilities, like in any hospital. “There is a shortage
of blood, or sometimes, we don’t have the right equipment,” said Shazeer. “It
is usually a low-resource setting. So, I have developed ways to overcome these
limitations.”
As
to the precautions that are taken to safeguard the lives of the doctors, nurses
and patients, the MSF shares their location with the warring parties. On the
roof of the hospital, there is a large logo of MSF; this can be seen from the
air, along with the Red Cross sign which depicts a hospital. However, despite
these precautions, MSF hospitals have been targeted in Yemen and
Afghanistan.
On
May 12, 2020, insurgents attacked the Dasht-e-Barchi maternity hospital in
Kabul. Twenty-four mothers, children and babies were shot dead. “The
organisation is always in touch with the local authorities and keeps them
updated,” said Shazeer. “We tell them we are impartial and neutral and have
only one aim: to provide medical care to the people who need it.”
Shazeer
feels sad about the impact of the six-year war on Yemen. The economy is in
freefall. Many young Yemenis want to go abroad for studies. Now they are unable
to do so because of severe financial constraints. The medical facilities have
broken down.
“There
is a lot of hardship, and a high degree of malnutrition because of food
shortages,” he said. “There are outbreaks of cholera. But the people are nice,
humble and smart. They are eager to learn and are good at grasping a
subject.”
Expectedly,
Yemen had a large number of Malayalis. Before the war began in 2014, his MSF
colleagues in Yemen worked with a lot of Malayali nurses. Now all of them have
left the country. Many of them took advantage of Operation Raahat, which was
conducted by the Indian Armed Forces to evacuate Indian citizens and foreign
nationals from Yemen in April, 2015. “I don’t think there are any Malayalis
left in the country,” said Shazeer.
However,
there are many Yemenis of Indian origin. Their great grandfathers had migrated
to Aden from India during the British rule, which began in 1839.
A
desire to help
Shazeer
joined MSF in September 2014, because he was interested in doing humanitarian
work. His inspiration was his father, Abdul Majeed, a surgeon who always helped
the downtrodden as well as his former mother-in-law Nimmi Sheriff. “Their work
for the poor had a big impact on me,” he said.
As
for his education, he did his undergraduate studies from Yenepoya Medical
College in Mangalore. This was followed by a residency in general surgery at
the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in Kochi. Then Shazeer did his
‘humanitarian surgery in an austere environment’ from the Catholic University
of Leuven, Brussels in 2018. At present, he is pursuing his Master’s in Public
Health from King’s College, London.
Meanwhile,
all these years of working in war zones has changed Shazeer. “I appreciate life
much more,” he said. “We complain when we don’t have electricity in our houses
for 15 minutes but there are people who stay in 50 degrees centigrade, and do
not have power for days together.”
It
is also a blessing to walk around in a city like Mangalore. “You can get out of
your house, and get back without any major incident happening to you,” he said.
“That is no longer the case in Syria, Palestine and Yemen. You could be shot at
or bombed. I appreciate everything about life.”
Whenever
he finishes a stint with MSF, Shazeer returns to Mangalore where he does operations alongside his father Abdul who works in private hospitals.
Asked
how he has viewed the incessant attacks by one group of men on another, and
vice versa, Shazeer said, “Man has been killing each other since the beginning
of time. There has never been a time when men have not killed other men. It is
usually in the name of religion, country, caste, or tribe. Man will always find
a reason to kill other human beings. But what is most disheartening is that
those who suffer are not involved in the battle. They are the ordinary people
who just want to get on with their daily lives, like having a job and looking
after their family. They want a normal life.”
(Published in Onmanorama.com)
