Médecins Sans Frontières addressed the National Press Club sharing concern for their medical staff's physical and mental wellbeing in Rafah.
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00:00 Nothing changes and that's why sometimes we feel like it's not for us anymore.
00:06 That's why we address these political messages also.
00:09 Our people are exhausted. They have crossed the line of being burned out.
00:14 You can imagine now, eight months, working days and nights, witnessing all this.
00:20 Losing their members of their families. Not being safe anywhere.
00:27 I think we still try to find the words, we cannot find them.
00:32 We make sure that people are very, very, very aware that if you suffer a medical incident in Gaza,
00:38 we cannot get you out until the Israeli authorities say it's okay and they might not get you out for a while.
00:44 If you have a mental health issue, which in that circumstance would not be a surprise, we cannot get you out.
00:49 I mean, the permissions, the bureaucracy, the blockages to be able to move people.
00:53 We have to talk about mental health. We have to talk about care when people return.
00:58 That's for international staff. But now we have to think about the 400 staff that we have working in Palestine
01:05 and what are our obligations to them? What is our duty of care to them?
01:10 I mean, this is an exceptional circumstance and so this is one of the questions that we're asking ourselves.
01:15 Many of them want out. Of course they do. It's hell on earth for them and their families.
01:20 How do we support them in the best way possible in what is a really impossible circumstance?