Wellington Healthcare Workers Marking One Year Of Weekly Vigils For Palestine

This Friday local healthcare workers will mark one year of weekly vigils in support of the work and suffering of medical professionals in Gaza. The milestone coincides with the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on 29 November. 

Aotearoa Healthcare Workers for Palestine (AHW4P) have held vigils at 6pm outside Ngā Puna Wai Ora Wellington Hospital, every Friday since 1 December 2023.

Vigils have also been held by AHW4P in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Ōtautahi Christchurch and Kirikiriroa Hamilton.

The AHW4P Chairperson, Nurse Practitioner Serena Moran says it has been a year of devastating milestones for the people of Palestine, yet 29 November 2024 marks an anniversary of solidarity and hope.

“For 52 weeks, healthcare workers in Te-Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington have gathered to honour our professional colleagues killed and wounded by Israeli Occupation Forces and to remember the millions of Palestinians under occupation deprived of the human right to healthcare.

“Our weekly vigils were inspired by a Friday vigil of healthcare workers in London on 10 November 2023, which attracted international media attention and sparked a worldwide movement,” Moran says.

“By coming together every Friday, we have been able to share our grief about the ongoing genocide, support one another and organise our continuing efforts for the protection of healthcare workers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a just and lasting peace for the Palestinian people.”

“The work of AHW4P has been wide-ranging. We have been speaking to community groups, we’ve joined marches for Palestine as healthcare workers, we lobbied medical conferences, we’ve written to our professional bodies and petitioned the government.”

“The alarm we expressed in a media statement about the threat of polio spreading in Gaza is even more frightening now than three months ago as the Israeli Defence Forces have closed off northern Gaza for ethnic cleansing and so the children can’t get their inoculations.”

Moran says a key thrust has been pushing PHARMAC to end its funding of Israeli medicines and supporting other actions aimed at boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its genocide in Gaza.

Registered Nurse and AHW4P Secretary Grant Brookes says there has been huge community support.

“Lots of people are tooting their solidarity when they drive past. Local politicians like Nureddin Abdurahman have often come along over the past year. We’ve had strong support from health sector organisations, such as the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa and the College of Midwives Te Kāreti Kaiwhakawhānau ki Aotearoa, Unions Wellington, or allies including Students for Justice in Palestine, Falastin Tea Collective and Aotearoa Teachers for Palestine.”

“On International Women’s Day on 8th March, we shifted our weekly vigil to the Israeli Embassy”, says Brookes.

“We felt that the acts of sexual violence against Palestinian women committed by Israeli soldiers, the denial of antenatal and postnatal care and the intolerable situation for mothers with young children demanded a visible demonstration on their doorstep. We also celebrated the resilience of Palestinian women and their will to resist.”

“It is abominable that Israeli attacks on healthcare continue, one year on”, says Moran. “But we believe that Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea, and our hope for a just and lasting peace will continue to inspire our service as healthcare workers.”

ABOUT AHW4P:

Aotearoa Healthcare Workers for Palestine is a group of over 300 healthcare workers across New Zealand. We are committed to the goals of protecting healthcare workers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and achieving a just and lasting peace for the Palestinian people. We acknowledge that we are speaking from the colonised land of Aotearoa New Zealand and that the thinking that drives colonial violence on both lands is connected, as is the need for Indigenous sovereignty in order to achieve a just and peaceful future. We invite healthcare workers in Aotearoa who agree with this statement to join us in campaigning for its goals.

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