WNAM REPORT: Indonesia’s Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C) has sent four members of its emergency medical team to assist the emergency services of Al Awda’s Hospital in Jabalia, Northern Gaza.
The volunteers comprise an internist, an emergency medicine specialist, a neurosurgeon, and a nurse, said Hadiki Habib, a professional doctor who currently chairs the presidium of Indonesia’s MER-C.
During their humanitarian mission, the EMT members would be involved in the Al Awda Hospital’s emergency services and outpatient neurosurgery twice a week, he said in a press statement published here Saturday.
According to dr. Ni Nyoman Indira, one of the MER-C’s volunteers in Northern Gaza, the Al Awda Hospital has been facing a shortage of medical facilities and personnel in the midst of a large number of patients.
This condition has encouraged MER-C to send its seventh EMT to the hospital, as it could receive over 400 patients daily while the number of health care workers there is limited, Indira said.
Therefore, the Al Awda Hospital’s medical personnel relatively have high workloads. At the same time, they still find the fact that many of their families should take refuge.
This reality could also make them at risk of fatigue at work, Indira said, adding that regarding the MER-C’s medical aid, the EMT members had coordinated with the hospital’s director since February 2, 2025.
MER-C is a non-profit organization in Indonesia that provides medical assistance to victims of natural disasters and wars.
It was founded by several University of Indonesia (UI) students in 1999. Since then, MER-C volunteers have been actively involved in humanitarian missions inside and outside Indonesia.
MER-C volunteers have also been caring for those falling victim to the Israeli brutality in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
In response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza owing to the destruction of hospitals, MER-C had ever published an open letter to the World Health Organization in December 2023.
In the letter, MER-C urged the WHO to do its utmost to restore the functions of hospitals that the Israeli military has destroyed and occupied as military barracks to enable them to serve the Palestinians in need of medical services.
