September 30, 2025 • 14 mins
Dr Rachel Coghlan is a palliative care doctor based in Melbourne, who worked with doctors in Gaza before October 7, 2023.
Since then, she has been in regular contact with her colleagues there, as they have continued to show up for work to care for their patients in increasingly horrific circumstances.
But now, as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza City intensifies, doctors in Gaza face a devastating decision: stay and care for their patients, or flee to save their families.
Today, Dr Rachel Coghlan on what’s left of Gaza’s hospitals, and the daily toll for doctors as they try to keep them going.
You can read Dr Coghlan’s work at Crikey: https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/25/gaza-evacuation-palestine-gaza-strip-israel/
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.
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Guest: Humanitarian and palliative care practitioner, researcher and advocate Dr Rachel Coghlan
Photo: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I first went to Gaza in February March twenty twenty,
just before COVID was hitting the world, and visited again
in twenty twenty two and was supposed to return in
October twenty twenty three. And when I first visited, I
was blown away by Gaza's vibrancy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Doctor Rachel Coglin is a palliative care doctor based in Melbourne.
On her visits to Gaza, she spent time in hospitals
and healthcare facilities across the Strip.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I spent most of my time with healthcare workers, many
of whom have since become my friends.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Dear beloved Sister Richer, thank you so much for your
kind or destroy your kindness, for your unwavering support.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
One of those friends is doctor Carmis Elissi Comis.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
He's a pain medicine and a neuro rehabilitation specialist who
has spent the last two years continuing to care for
his patients. I'm not sure that there's a day gone
by where he hasn't turned up to a hospital and
start to move around between different hospitals, but has always
remained in the north of Gaza in Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
In personal level, I decided since the beginning of the war,
to stay with my family, to protect my family, and
to help the poor patients here in Gaza who are
suffering from chronic pain and neurological diseases that I could
be overhelp to them.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
As the death toll has mounted over the past two years,
healthcare workers across Gaza have continued showing up to care
for their patients in increasingly horrific circumstances. But now as
Israel's bombardment of Gaza City intensifies, doctor Alessi has had
to make a devastating decision stay and care for his
patients or flee to save his family. I'm Ruby Jones,
(01:55):
and you're listening to seven AM today doctor Rachel Cockland
on her friend doctor Comis Alessie. It's Wednesday, October one. Rachel,
You've been speaking to many healthcare workers in Gaza, including
(02:16):
your friend doctor Carmis Alessi, regularly since October seven. So
when Israels bombardment began two years ago, tell me about
what your friends told you about the decision to stay
and to keep the hospitals going.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think there is a deep sense of staying to
care for your people. Every single health worker that I
am in contact with, has not stopped caring, has not
stopped turning up to work. Despite all personal risks. Comis
has had opportunity to leave Gaza to live in safety
in other parts of the world, and he made a
very conscious decision at the beginning of this conflict to
(02:57):
stay with his family to protect his fami family and
that includes both his seven children and his wife and
his huge extended family, and to continue to help caring
for the poorer people in Gaza who was suffering.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I had many good offers ready to live Gaza over
the past seven hundred and fifteen days. I refused really
and remained in Gaza, serving thousands and thousands of people
and needed patience.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Almost everyone I know in Gaza has stayed, no matter
what profession, no matter what their background, they have stepped
up to support and to care for their people. He
has had to evacuate several times. I can't I've lost
count of the number of times that he has had
to move his house and move his family.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I personally, with my family and my sisters and my
mother and my brothers, have moved more than thirteen times
from one place to another.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Living in fear, living with very little water, difficulty getting food,
no secure realty, and real attempts to stay and to
hold on, hold on to hope.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And what has come is said to you about his work,
about what he's been seeing in these hospitals that he's
been in over the past two years.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Commiss has described, you know, in great detail, the decimation,
and he coined at one point recently the one hundred
ways to die in Gaza. Whether that's from drinking dirty water,
unclean and unsafe water, snipers and quad copters, whether that's
from aerial bombardment, whether that's from being a cancer patient
(04:38):
and not having access to healthcare anymore, or a dialysis
patient not having access to dialysis.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
More than eleven thousand cancer patients are left with no medicines,
no chemotherapy in no radiotherapy, and no surgery and no
pain relief, no palliative care for them.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
They haven't had a steady supply of you know, the
right medicine or any medicines in fact, for a very
very long time.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Tell this moment, more than three hundred and fifty thousand
individuals in Gaza are suffering from infectious diseases ranging between
gastroententritis the area, respiratory infections and infectious skin infections in
the people in the refugee areas.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And as that was happening, as medicines were running out
and things were getting worse in Gaza, you would have
been seeing the death counts come out sometimes daily, and
I suppose trying to work out if it was your colleagues,
if it was your friends who were among the people killed.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, and that's still a daily thing.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You wake up in the morning and check you WhatsApp
messages in the hope that those little blue ticks appear
and that they have read the messages. And I know
that they are still alive. And some of my friends
and my colleagues have been killed. My friend Mahmud Alhendi,
who was a father to eight children and a grandchildren
and a trained nurse who worked at Alali Hospital supporting
(06:07):
women with breast cancer. He was murdered in March twenty
twenty four as he stepped onto his balcony. He was
snipered in the chest three times by Israeli forces. We
had another colleague, doctor hammam Alo, who sent a message
from his father's house near Al Shifa. We said, the
sounds I'm hearing now worse than action in video games.
(06:28):
Bombing hasn't stopped for hours, and he was debating whether
to go to work that day to treat his dialysis patients.
He was one of Gars's handful of mophrologists who provided
central dialysis treatment for people with kidney disease. And just
after he had sent that message, he was killed by
an idea of bomb strike on his father's home, alongside
(06:49):
his father and his brother in law and his father
in law. And he was thirty six years old. And
he had last message that morning actually and said in
his very last message on WhatsApp, you're shouting me a
lot to us.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Please keep it up.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And I don't know whether it's silly or not, but
find myself sending them a tribute via WhatsApps if I'm
waiting for them to message back, because I guess that's
the only way that I have to say goodbye.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Coming up the decision facing doctor carmis Alessi Rachel. In
the past two weeks, Israel has stepped up its bombing
of Gaza City. There's been air strikes, heavy artillery has
(07:42):
flattened buildings, including hospitals. So what do we know about
whether it is still possible to provide medical care in
Gaza right now?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So we know that I think the UN Human Rights
off Us put out a release in the last few days.
I think they've calculated seventeen in Israeli attacks on on
near health facilities in Gaza City since the sixteenth of September,
So in the last couple of weeks. And what we
are hearing on the ground from healthcare workers that we
know there who were still in those healthcare facilities and
(08:14):
hospitals in Gaza City is that there are daily attacks
on already decimated hospitals and clinics. More than half of
the hospitals in Gaza City are no longer working. Al
Shifa Hospital, the main hospital in Gaza, continues to be
partially functional. Our Ali Hospital continues to be partially functional.
Our Kuds run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, continues
(08:37):
to be partially functional. But when we say partially functional,
that's incredibly limited service. And yet the healthcare staff stay
and there are patients still in those hospitals needing urgent healthcare.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And so what have these latest attacks meant for doctor Kamis.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, so he Commis left a lengthy voice message last week.
I think it was describing that after seven hundred and
fifteen days or so, he had finally made the decision
that he needed to move him and his family from
Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
After seven hundred and fifteen days of being steadfast in
Gaza and working with people here trying to save as
many lives as possible, finally I decided to leave Gada
to the middle zone of Gaza.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yes, his message was pained and exhausted, and his voice,
you know, occasionally cracking through the message.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They've added new tools of our parent massacres, using sixteen
bombing of total of towers, buildings, detonation of thanks amongst
residential blocks, and choosing by c helicopters or helicopters on people.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
He described having to leave behind his aunt, who had
been killed only days before last week.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I've lost my only aunt with her children and grandchildren,
almost fifty three individuals of that family, four generations, has
gone completely until now we cannot retrieve her body or
the bodies or her kids and help children.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Whereas many people were making the journey out and still
are making the journey out of Gaza City on foot,
you know, carrying what possessions they have on their shoulders
or in their carts or shopping trolleys or whatever they
whatever means they have commiss in some ways is in
a luckier group and was able to pay for transport.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Just for transportation and immediate rental, you need four thousand
year stumps, which cannot be afforded by the vast majority.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
They can hear the bombing of Gaza City from where
they are, but they are alive and in a humble
place and in a calmer place.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it must be an extraordinarily hard decision to make
as a healthcare worker. How long you stay and at
what point maybe you leave?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Absolutely and you know, none of us can imagine what
it takes to make that kind of a decision. And
I mean, I have so many friends in Gaza who
have had the opportunity to leave Gaza but have remained
and their immediate families, their wife and their children may
have left Gaza for safety, but they have stayed both
(11:43):
to care for their patients and to care for their
extended family, their parents, their grandparents, the older people in
their family who are just simply not able to evacuate.
The steadfastness of the Palestinians of Gazas is an incredible
ethics and incredible humanity that is almost impossible for any
of us outside to comprehend.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And so what is next now for Commis and the
family that he does still have.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
He has landed in a place and has somewhere to stay.
I imagine knowing how is he will be seeking out
the nearest hospital clinic or healthclare clinic or hospital so
that he can continue to provide his service as a doctor.
He wants the world to know that he's just an
(12:32):
ordinary person who wants to live a decent life, who
wants to live in peace, who wants to live in
peace in Gaza, who was always advocated for peace, somebody
who was always advocated for saving lives and supporting people
wherever he has worked, and that's been around the world,
and I imagine that he will continue doing that wherever
(12:53):
he has landed.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
My message is a message of peace and a message
of hope for everyone, not only for Partsinas, but for
every individuals, for every national worldwide. This is my message.
I hope together we can promote peace and tranquility. We
can bring back hope to the people who have lost
(13:15):
hopes in the future.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Thank you so much, Rachel, Thank you so much for
speaking with me pleasure.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Also in the news today, the Reserve Bank has left
interest rates on hold at three point six percent. While
the board said inflation has fallen substantially since its peak
in twenty twenty two, They also pointed to the global
economy as a factor in their decision, specifically the impact
of Trump's tariffs, along with conditions in the labor market
and productivity. The RBA has previously lowered interest rates three
(14:05):
times this year, and a Pentagon review into Orcus is ongoing,
according to Defense Minister Richard Miles. Yesterday, Nikayasia reported that
the review was done and the Orcust deal was safe,
but official confirmation has not been released by the Trump administration.
Despite that, Miles says his confident the deal will go ahead.
The review being conducted by noted Orcust skeptic Elbridge Colby
(14:29):
is overdue and Ruby Jones, this is seven am. Thanks
for listening.
I first went to Gaza in February March twenty twenty,
just before COVID was hitting the world, and visited again
in twenty twenty two and was supposed to return in
October twenty twenty three. And when I first visited, I
was blown away by Gaza's vibrancy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Doctor Rachel Coglin is a palliative care doctor based in Melbourne.
On her visits to Gaza, she spent time in hospitals
and healthcare facilities across the Strip.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I spent most of my time with healthcare workers, many
of whom have since become my friends.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Dear beloved Sister Richer, thank you so much for your
kind or destroy your kindness, for your unwavering support.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
One of those friends is doctor Carmis Elissi Comis.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
He's a pain medicine and a neuro rehabilitation specialist who
has spent the last two years continuing to care for
his patients. I'm not sure that there's a day gone
by where he hasn't turned up to a hospital and
start to move around between different hospitals, but has always
remained in the north of Gaza in Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
In personal level, I decided since the beginning of the war,
to stay with my family, to protect my family, and
to help the poor patients here in Gaza who are
suffering from chronic pain and neurological diseases that I could
be overhelp to them.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
As the death toll has mounted over the past two years,
healthcare workers across Gaza have continued showing up to care
for their patients in increasingly horrific circumstances. But now as
Israel's bombardment of Gaza City intensifies, doctor Alessi has had
to make a devastating decision stay and care for his
patients or flee to save his family. I'm Ruby Jones,
(01:55):
and you're listening to seven AM today doctor Rachel Cockland
on her friend doctor Comis Alessie. It's Wednesday, October one. Rachel,
You've been speaking to many healthcare workers in Gaza, including
(02:16):
your friend doctor Carmis Alessi, regularly since October seven. So
when Israels bombardment began two years ago, tell me about
what your friends told you about the decision to stay
and to keep the hospitals going.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I think there is a deep sense of staying to
care for your people. Every single health worker that I
am in contact with, has not stopped caring, has not
stopped turning up to work. Despite all personal risks. Comis
has had opportunity to leave Gaza to live in safety
in other parts of the world, and he made a
very conscious decision at the beginning of this conflict to
(02:57):
stay with his family to protect his fami family and
that includes both his seven children and his wife and
his huge extended family, and to continue to help caring
for the poorer people in Gaza who was suffering.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I had many good offers ready to live Gaza over
the past seven hundred and fifteen days. I refused really
and remained in Gaza, serving thousands and thousands of people
and needed patience.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Almost everyone I know in Gaza has stayed, no matter
what profession, no matter what their background, they have stepped
up to support and to care for their people. He
has had to evacuate several times. I can't I've lost
count of the number of times that he has had
to move his house and move his family.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I personally, with my family and my sisters and my
mother and my brothers, have moved more than thirteen times
from one place to another.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Living in fear, living with very little water, difficulty getting food,
no secure realty, and real attempts to stay and to
hold on, hold on to hope.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And what has come is said to you about his work,
about what he's been seeing in these hospitals that he's
been in over the past two years.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Commiss has described, you know, in great detail, the decimation,
and he coined at one point recently the one hundred
ways to die in Gaza. Whether that's from drinking dirty water,
unclean and unsafe water, snipers and quad copters, whether that's
from aerial bombardment, whether that's from being a cancer patient
(04:38):
and not having access to healthcare anymore, or a dialysis
patient not having access to dialysis.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
More than eleven thousand cancer patients are left with no medicines,
no chemotherapy in no radiotherapy, and no surgery and no
pain relief, no palliative care for them.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
They haven't had a steady supply of you know, the
right medicine or any medicines in fact, for a very
very long time.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Tell this moment, more than three hundred and fifty thousand
individuals in Gaza are suffering from infectious diseases ranging between
gastroententritis the area, respiratory infections and infectious skin infections in
the people in the refugee areas.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
And as that was happening, as medicines were running out
and things were getting worse in Gaza, you would have
been seeing the death counts come out sometimes daily, and
I suppose trying to work out if it was your colleagues,
if it was your friends who were among the people killed.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, and that's still a daily thing.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You wake up in the morning and check you WhatsApp
messages in the hope that those little blue ticks appear
and that they have read the messages. And I know
that they are still alive. And some of my friends
and my colleagues have been killed. My friend Mahmud Alhendi,
who was a father to eight children and a grandchildren
and a trained nurse who worked at Alali Hospital supporting
(06:07):
women with breast cancer. He was murdered in March twenty
twenty four as he stepped onto his balcony. He was
snipered in the chest three times by Israeli forces. We
had another colleague, doctor hammam Alo, who sent a message
from his father's house near Al Shifa. We said, the
sounds I'm hearing now worse than action in video games.
(06:28):
Bombing hasn't stopped for hours, and he was debating whether
to go to work that day to treat his dialysis patients.
He was one of Gars's handful of mophrologists who provided
central dialysis treatment for people with kidney disease. And just
after he had sent that message, he was killed by
an idea of bomb strike on his father's home, alongside
(06:49):
his father and his brother in law and his father
in law. And he was thirty six years old. And
he had last message that morning actually and said in
his very last message on WhatsApp, you're shouting me a
lot to us.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Please keep it up.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And I don't know whether it's silly or not, but
find myself sending them a tribute via WhatsApps if I'm
waiting for them to message back, because I guess that's
the only way that I have to say goodbye.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Coming up the decision facing doctor carmis Alessi Rachel. In
the past two weeks, Israel has stepped up its bombing
of Gaza City. There's been air strikes, heavy artillery has
(07:42):
flattened buildings, including hospitals. So what do we know about
whether it is still possible to provide medical care in
Gaza right now?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
So we know that I think the UN Human Rights
off Us put out a release in the last few days.
I think they've calculated seventeen in Israeli attacks on on
near health facilities in Gaza City since the sixteenth of September,
So in the last couple of weeks. And what we
are hearing on the ground from healthcare workers that we
know there who were still in those healthcare facilities and
(08:14):
hospitals in Gaza City is that there are daily attacks
on already decimated hospitals and clinics. More than half of
the hospitals in Gaza City are no longer working. Al
Shifa Hospital, the main hospital in Gaza, continues to be
partially functional. Our Ali Hospital continues to be partially functional.
Our Kuds run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, continues
(08:37):
to be partially functional. But when we say partially functional,
that's incredibly limited service. And yet the healthcare staff stay
and there are patients still in those hospitals needing urgent healthcare.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And so what have these latest attacks meant for doctor Kamis.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, so he Commis left a lengthy voice message last week.
I think it was describing that after seven hundred and
fifteen days or so, he had finally made the decision
that he needed to move him and his family from
Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
After seven hundred and fifteen days of being steadfast in
Gaza and working with people here trying to save as
many lives as possible, finally I decided to leave Gada
to the middle zone of Gaza.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yes, his message was pained and exhausted, and his voice,
you know, occasionally cracking through the message.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
They've added new tools of our parent massacres, using sixteen
bombing of total of towers, buildings, detonation of thanks amongst
residential blocks, and choosing by c helicopters or helicopters on people.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
He described having to leave behind his aunt, who had
been killed only days before last week.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
I've lost my only aunt with her children and grandchildren,
almost fifty three individuals of that family, four generations, has
gone completely until now we cannot retrieve her body or
the bodies or her kids and help children.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Whereas many people were making the journey out and still
are making the journey out of Gaza City on foot,
you know, carrying what possessions they have on their shoulders
or in their carts or shopping trolleys or whatever they
whatever means they have commiss in some ways is in
a luckier group and was able to pay for transport.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Just for transportation and immediate rental, you need four thousand
year stumps, which cannot be afforded by the vast majority.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
They can hear the bombing of Gaza City from where
they are, but they are alive and in a humble
place and in a calmer place.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it must be an extraordinarily hard decision to make
as a healthcare worker. How long you stay and at
what point maybe you leave?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Absolutely and you know, none of us can imagine what
it takes to make that kind of a decision. And
I mean, I have so many friends in Gaza who
have had the opportunity to leave Gaza but have remained
and their immediate families, their wife and their children may
have left Gaza for safety, but they have stayed both
(11:43):
to care for their patients and to care for their
extended family, their parents, their grandparents, the older people in
their family who are just simply not able to evacuate.
The steadfastness of the Palestinians of Gazas is an incredible
ethics and incredible humanity that is almost impossible for any
of us outside to comprehend.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
And so what is next now for Commis and the
family that he does still have.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
He has landed in a place and has somewhere to stay.
I imagine knowing how is he will be seeking out
the nearest hospital clinic or healthclare clinic or hospital so
that he can continue to provide his service as a doctor.
He wants the world to know that he's just an
(12:32):
ordinary person who wants to live a decent life, who
wants to live in peace, who wants to live in
peace in Gaza, who was always advocated for peace, somebody
who was always advocated for saving lives and supporting people
wherever he has worked, and that's been around the world,
and I imagine that he will continue doing that wherever
(12:53):
he has landed.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
My message is a message of peace and a message
of hope for everyone, not only for Partsinas, but for
every individuals, for every national worldwide. This is my message.
I hope together we can promote peace and tranquility. We
can bring back hope to the people who have lost
(13:15):
hopes in the future.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Thank you so much, Rachel, Thank you so much for
speaking with me pleasure.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Ruby.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Also in the news today, the Reserve Bank has left
interest rates on hold at three point six percent. While
the board said inflation has fallen substantially since its peak
in twenty twenty two, They also pointed to the global
economy as a factor in their decision, specifically the impact
of Trump's tariffs, along with conditions in the labor market
and productivity. The RBA has previously lowered interest rates three
(14:05):
times this year, and a Pentagon review into Orcus is ongoing,
according to Defense Minister Richard Miles. Yesterday, Nikayasia reported that
the review was done and the Orcust deal was safe,
but official confirmation has not been released by the Trump administration.
Despite that, Miles says his confident the deal will go ahead.
The review being conducted by noted Orcust skeptic Elbridge Colby
(14:29):
is overdue and Ruby Jones, this is seven am. Thanks
for listening.
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