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Home » Soldiers »

Testimony - 'Aspirin'

 

Name: Anonymous
Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Nahal Brigade
Location: Jenin, West Bank
Date: 2005
 
A former Israeli soldier provides a testimony to Breaking the Silence in which he describes the practice of dispensing aspirin to Palestinian detainees for potentially serious medical conditions.
 
Soldier: Salem is a detention center for security prisoners who do their time there. Conditions there were less favorable than at Meggido, which is a huge prison. There is checkup time once or twice a week, and whoever is taken to Salem has already undergone a doctor’s examination to verify that he can do time at a facility without a doctor. Whoever isn’t able goes to Meggido. There were all sorts of cases that I’m sure – if a doctor had seen them, they never would have entered Salem. Like a cardiac patient facing surgery, or a diabetic.
 
Interviewer: They went to Meggido?
 
Soldier: Yes. But they were at Salem. That’s the point. There were three instances I remember: The first was a 15-year-old boy with pain in his balls. You could hear shouts from inside the cell. A sewer runs under Salem and it stinks like hell in the summertime, really bad. Incredible. The inmates yelled for the sergeant on duty to arrive, and after 20 minutes of yelling, a 15-year-old boy was brought out of the prisoners’ cell where there’s a shaweesh (an inmate who can speak Hebrew and mediates between the wardens and the inmates). He explains that the boy had testicle pains. The medical protocol requires that anyone suffering pain in his testicles must go to the hospital, see a doctor. I was stressed out and tried to speak with the battalion doctor to ask him to make a call. He said he’d be there two days later, and that I should give him an aspirin.
 
Interviewer: How did you answer this?
 
Soldier: That aspirin doesn’t help testicle pain. He needs to get to the hospital. The doctor said he couldn’t do it and would try to get there the next day.
 
Interviewer: What happened to this boy?
 
Soldier: He’s okay, a doctor came and took him.
 
Interviewer: You told him to sit in the cell and gave him an aspirin?
 
Soldier: There was nothing much I could do. I gave him a pill to relieve his pain and it calmed him psychologically. I told him that if it hurts more, he should call me. He didn’t.
 
Interviewer: Did you see him the next day?
 
Soldier: I don’t remember. I think so. Again, I remember he didn’t summon me that night. There’s a guard post inside the detention center which my own company was supposed to man, I wasn’t there on duty as a medic. The detention facility would summon medics from the company as needed, when there was no doctor around. There was not ample medical provision there, not even a first aid kit. I realized he was supposed to undergo hernia surgery before his arrest. I know because a doctor who checked him before his arrest signed it. Maybe the examination was not thorough, but this kid could not stand arrest. Then I realized that a doctor does not always really examine the detainees.
 
Interviewer: How did you realize this?
 
Soldier: When the medics were required to examine detainees’ ability to withstand custody, we were told that even a medic could do so. At some point I could no longer be there. I had many confrontations with the staff and my company medic and the battalion doctor over this, so I was told not to go there anymore.
 
Interviewer: How do you know the prisoners’ data?
 
Soldier: I saw their files … Every person arriving at the detention facility was required to undergo a medical examination. The doctor had to check his medical history in order to verify his capability, as well as anyone who was being released.
 
Interviewer: What does the file include?
 
Soldier: Name, data, picture, formal details, crime, length of prison sentence, arrest document.
 
Interviewer: Who fills it out?
 
Soldier: In principle, the doctor or medic.
 
Interviewer: Did you fill such files out?
 
Soldier: Yes. I wrote in pulse, blood pressure, issues of health, medication, family history.
 
Interviewer: Who signed the document?
 
Soldier: I did.
 
Interviewer: What’s written below the signature?
 
Soldier: The doctor, I think. I’m not sure. I think they said the medic may also do this.
 
Interviewer: Who did?
 
Soldier: The doctor, I think.
 
Interviewer: The doctor approved this?
 
Soldier: Yes.