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Carrollton doctor helps patients in Gaza Strip
Dr. Bilal Piracha, who works at Castle Hills ER in Carrollton, recently returned from assisting a hospital in Gaza where he saw the devastation from the Israel-Hamas war up close.
CARROLLTON, Texas - A group of doctors, including some who live in North Texas, are back in the U.S. after helping patients in the Gaza Strip.
As the war continues, people in the medical field say hospitals are still being pushed to the limit.
Dr. Bilal Piracha, who usually works at Castle Hills ER in Carrollton, says there is a real humanitarian crisis in the region and hopes for a ceasefire soon.
"The beds were everywhere in the corridor, on the floors, under the stairs. ER was full all the time," said Piracha.
For the last two weeks, he and a team of eight other volunteer doctors were in Gaza to help a hospital as part of a medical mission from the humanitarian aid organization MedGlobal.
"For us, it was a big flow. 1,000 plus patients would come into the ER at a time," Piracha recalled.
[REPORTER: When is the last time you have seen that many patients in an ER room?]
"Never before," he replied.
The war between Israel and Hamas has gone on for months.
Piracha's wife encouraged him to help and he said if an opportunity presented itself, he would.
The hospital where he worked is set up for about 200 beds, but he says upwards of 700 people stayed there every night.
"There were explosions going on all the time, the whole night you would hear explosions, gunshots, but interestingly there was no fear," he explained.
Piracha described the highs and lows from the trip. The lows are what you expect to hear, describing some of the injuries. Brain matter, a medical term, now has a new meaning for him.
"That would be the way of communication with the doctors and nurses. The next word would be hopeless. This would be a hopeless case," he said.
He described other injuries, saying he saw patients as young as infants to elderly people.
"People tell us very plainly, they are ready to die every night. Every night when they go to sleep, the intention is this will be our last night," Piracha recalled.
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There was part of his trip that gave him motivation – working with the medical students and seeing their energy to learn.
"They were so excited and motivated to know someone came from the U.S.," he said.
[REPORTER: "Do you think you made a difference?"]
"Literally, I was able to save the lives of many kids, men, women," Piracha said.
Dr. Piracha said they could not do fully body CT scans because the only machine in the hospital would break due to the volume of patients.
He said they left what's called butterfly ultrasound tools, basically allowing the doctors and nurses to plug it into their phone and use their phone as a scan device.