About 20 demonstrators gathered outside of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield on Tuesday to confront what they see as the hospital’s failure to condemn Israel’s war on Gaza, particularly the Israeli Defense Force’s targeting of hospitals and healthcare workers in the besieged enclave.
River Valley for Gaza Healthcare, a local activist group focused on health care needs in Gaza, organized the event as part of Doctors Against Genocide’s worldwide mobilization campaign “Not Another Child, Not Another Hospital,” calling on “medical institutions to take a long overdue stand against genocide.”
Braving 20-degree weather, demonstrators held signs with photos of bombed ambulances, healthcare workers stripped and detained by the Israeli military, and the faces of medical workers killed during Israel’s 15-month invasion of Gaza. One protester held a photo of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old Gazan girl whose car came under Israeli fire in January 2024, killing her, six of her family members, and two medical professionals who attempted to save her.
Nick Mottern, a member of River Valley for Gaza Healthcare, detailed the group’s demands to Baystate Medical Center in a speech to the crowd. He called on the hospital to advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza, an arms embargo on Israel, and for Baystate to provide proper training for war-related injuries if victims of the war in Gaza come to the facility for treatment.
“We’re out in the cold,” Mottern told the crowd, “but it’s nothing compared to what these people are experiencing, watching their children die.”
Mottern served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. He became involved in anti-war organizing later in life. Holding the flag of Veterans for Peace, a veteran’s group focused on peace activism since the 1980s of which he is also a member, Mottern criticized what he said was Baystate’s silence.
“There are very wealthy people running these institutions who feel that they can’t or don’t want to say anything about this slaughter because it might jeopardize their financing,” he told The Shoestring. “This silence is why genocide is happening.”
In an email to The Shoestring, Heather Dugan, a spokesperson for Baystate, said that the hospital was aware of the demonstration Tuesday.
“Our top priority is always ensuring the safety of Baystate Health’s patients, staff, and visitors,” the statement said. “There was no disruption to services or patient care.”
River Valley for Gaza Healthcare held similar rallies at Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Holyoke Medical Center in December, yet, to organizers, the timing of this demonstration was particularly important.
On Dec. 27, Israel raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last major medical facility in Gaza’s north, rendering it out of service. The Israeli military arrested Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital’s director, and has not disclosed where he is being held. Human rights groups like the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor are raising alarm bells, fearing the doctor is at risk of torture, given that other detained medical workers have faced brutal treatment during the war.
According to the United Nations, as of Jan. 3, “only 16 of the [Gaza’s] 36 hospitals remain partially operational, their collective capacity merely above 1,800 beds — entirely insufficient for the overwhelming medical needs.”
These recent blows to Gaza’s medical infrastructure were the focus of the demonstration.
Jeanne Allen, a retired nurse practitioner, held a sign reading, “We are all Dr. Hassam Abu Safiya.”
Both Allen and Mottern have observed a dawn-to-dusk fast since late 2023 in protest of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Mercedes Ryan, a member of the housing justice organization Springfield No One Leaves, said during a speech that Baystate’s “refusal to acknowledge and condemn the destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system is a betrayal of the values that health care represents: compassion, humanity, and the sanctity of life.”
To Jen Scarlott, an organizer with River Valley for Gaza Healthcare, the hospital meeting the group’s demands would just be “a start.”
“We need them to unleash the health care workers inside these buildings,” she said, complaining that Baystate Medical Center employs a “Palestine exception” when workers wish to express solidarity with victims of the war.
“Liberal institutions like this tend to encourage their staff to be vocal about trans rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter and the rest of it, but when it comes to Palestine don’t you dare say a word,” she said.
Organizers asked for an audience with Baystate CEO Peter Banko in a letter delivered both to his office and via email to discuss their demands. They said they were met with no response.
Philip Harak, the state coordinator of the Christian nonviolence organization Pax Christi Massachusetts, said he believes supporting Palestine works toward his group’s mission of religious nonviolence across the world, and wants people to place their ideologies aside “regardless of religion.”
“I’d like to see more of us put our ideologies aside and say, ‘Hey, let’s figure out ways we can all live peacefully and justly,’” he said.
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