Press release. 81 Scrubs Outside World Medical Association WMA Summit.

PRESS RELEASE 10 OCTOBER | ROTTERDAM 
Doctors Hang 81 Scrubs Outside WMA Summit as Global Campaign Challenges WMA over IMA Membership  

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands – International pressure on the World Medical Association (WMA) to suspend the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) is growing.

On the 10th of October hundreds of doctors gathered outside the WMA assembly demanding the suspension of the IMA. This happened after days of protest and international organization. 

81 scrubs at the WMA’s doorstep 

Today on Saturday the 10th of October, hundreds of medical doctors around the world protested at the WMA’s doorstep. At the end 81 healthcare workers simultaneously removed their scrubs and hung them in a long line facing the WMA assembly. Each bearing the name of a Palestinian healthcare worker currently held in illegal Israeli detention, where they are being starved and tortured. 

This was part of a protest against the ongoing membership of the IMA in the WMA, despite them breaching almost every ethical principle in the WMA’s Code of Medical Ethics.

Since October 2023, more than 1,700 healthcare Palestinian workers have been killed, while hospitals, ambulances and medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed on a massive scale. 

“These scrubs should not be empty. Our colleagues belong with their patients, not in Israeli prisons. Today we literally placed their names at the WMA’s doorstep,” says Mejrem Ahmetaj, general practitioner and part of "IMA Out!" coalition. 

The IMA is more than a bystander 

According to the IMA OUT! campaign, the IMA has not merely remained silent as Palestinian healthcare has been systematically destroyed: it has legitimised that destruction and blocked international condemnation. 
IMA chairman Zion Hagay argued that Hamas needed to be “rooted out” of healthcare facilities which he claimed were being used as “terror bases.” Hagay also said this year that the IMA had blocked four attempts within the WMA to condemn Israel over the destruction of Palestinian healthcare facilities. 

“The IMA is not a bystander. It defends these attacks and blocks international condemnation while Palestinian healthcare is being destroyed. That is not medical neutrality. That is complicity,” says Mejrem Ahmetaj.

8 October: International Medical Summit challenges the WMA 

Earlier this week on Thursday 8th of October, an international meeting at Theater Rotterdam brought together 200 Palestinian doctors, medical leaders and human rights activists including Palestinian Surgeon practising in Gaza dr. Hussein Shomar, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti, South African Medical Association president dr. Mvuyisi Mzukwa, and orthopaedic surgeon Swee Ang to address the destruction of Palestinian healthcare and the responsibility of the international medical community.

Professor Derek Summerfield addressed the complicity of the IMA and the involvement of Israeli doctors in the torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. 
“Our Palestinian colleagues are being killed and imprisoned, where they are starved and tortured. Their hospitals have been destroyed and patients driven out or murdered. The IMA has said and done nothing about these war crimes against health workers, patients and hospitals. 30 years of WMA dialogue with the IMA has done nothing but give the IMA a sense of impunity, why should they change?  And we ask: where is the dialogue with Palestinian doctors in Gaza? Where is their voice in the conferences and committees of the WMA?  It is time for 
national medical associations and the WMA to speak out and take action. Break your ties with the IMA and suspend the IMA from the WMA now,” says Jonathan Fluxman on behalf of the IMA OUT! coalition. 

Nearly 7,000 health workers call for the IMA’s suspension 

At the end of the protest on Saturday 10 October, the IMA OUT! campaign delivered the global petition to the WMA, signed by nearly 6,850 health workers from all over the world. 
The petition demands that the IMA is suspended by the WMA for its gross violations of medical ethics over decades, concerning Palestinian patients and healthcare services and the complicity of Israeli doctors in the starvation, torture and medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners. 
As medical leaders from around the world gathered for the WMA summit in Rotterdam, doctors and healthcare workers also called on other national medical associations to follow the South African, British and Turkish medical associations, to cut their ties with the IMA, and push the WMA to suspend the IMA. 

“The question is no longer whether the medical community should speak out, but when the WMA will finally act. We are not blaming the IMA for the actions of the Israeli government, we are blaming the IMA for its ethical failures and its justification of the bombing of Gaza’s hospitals and war crimes against Palestinian health workers. Rotterdam is the moment to take action: protect Palestinian healthcare workers and suspend the IMA,” says Loes de Kleijn, general practitioner and part of the IMA OUT! coalition. 

Hanging scrubs containing names of detained palestinian Health Care workers facing the WMA summit 
dr. Swee Ang Chai demanding the suspension of the WMA 

 
Doctors demanding the release of Dr Hussam Abu safiyya and all other Palestinian colleagues detained in Israeli prisons.  
Hundreds of doctors gathering in front the WMA assembly  
The IMA is complicit on the attack of palestinian health care