What is keeping me up at night, by Sarah Humphreys

When deciding what to write for my fourth and final blog post, I thought about the hedgehog and stray kitten that hang out together by my doorstep every night, how this year has almost flown by and what a crazy year it’s been, in so many transformative ways, and other random musings on life in Beer Sheva and medical school in Israel. 

I feel compelled to write, however, about the thing that’s been keeping me up at night for a week.

Last Tuesday, as friends and I were leaving the hospital after class, we saw an African immigrant being escorted out of the building barefoot, and shackled at his wrists and ankles. My heart sank, and I’m ashamed to admit that my immediate impulse was to avoid looking up at his face because I was afraid of what I would feel, and what I would be forced to confront. I did look at him, however, and I have no way of describing what I found, except to say that the man seemed dead inside—completely void of emotion and life, gaunt, like a ghost crossing the river Styx in the fifth circle of hell.

I parted ways with my classmates and that night some of us went to a concert but I couldn’t shake the image of what I had seen.

The next day I went for a run, and maybe for the first time in my life, gave thanks for the fact that I have two legs that aren’t shackled together, that let me run and travel to new countries and seek out new adventures and pursue a better life for myself. Of course, days later, when I couldn’t stop talking about it to those closest to me, and couldn’t shake the image that haunts me, I began to do some very superficial research into the topic and struck up an email correspondence with Len Rubenstein, the ex-president of Physicians for Human Rights, with whom I worked on a project prior to enrolling in medical school.

Here is what I found: Israel currently keeps about 2000 Africans asylum seekers from the Sudan and Eritrea in detention centers in the Negev, close to the Egyptian border. The majority of those currently detained entered Israel after June 2012 and are being held under Israel’s Anti-Infiltration Law that allows the state to hold, without trial for up to three years, anyone who has entered the country illegally, and I believe longer for refugees from countries considered enemies of the state, such as Sudan. It isn’t my job here to talk about Israel immigration policy—a simple google search will tell you all you need, or you can read about it here: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/13/israel-detained-asylum-seekers-pressured-leave It is also important to point out that Israel’s struggle to maintain a national identity in the face of mass immigration is not unique to Israel—the United States and much of Europe are dealing with similar issues.

What I can’t stop thinking about is how the man I saw was probably trying to escape a life of persecution for the promise of a better life in Israel. And after experiencing the (well documented) kidnapping and torture while crossing through Egypt, he is now stuck in a desert detention facility indefinitely. And how, with the detention facilities currently being expanded, and located so close to Soroka hospital, there is no doubt that we will encounter these shackled asylum seekers as patients on the ward.

How do you treat someone when the least of his problems is medical? How do you treat someone when he is shackled to a hospital bed for trying to find a better life? How do you heal someone’s body and then send him back to a place of no hope? Why aren’t we talking about these things?

And then I remember that this conversation applies to all areas of civilian life—what is our obligation to other people? How often do you turn away when you don’t want to deal with the repercussions of witnessing an unsavory event? How do you cope when you witness something horrible and there is literally nothing you feel you can do, except write?

I don’t have any answers.