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Behind the Scenes 72 Students with Gaza’s Nurses Elected Scholars universitytimes.ie
Volume XV, Issue VI
Tuesday 29th April 2025
Brídín Ní Fhearraigh-Joyce
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his year’s Trinity Monday saw 72 students elected scholars. As of January 2025, 909 students were registered to sit the optional exams, with 179 of these students coming from Joint Honours courses and 88 Biological and Biomedical Sciences students. Last year 73 scholars were elected; 62 scholars were awarded in 2023. In 2016 the number of scholars dipped to 50 students. To qualify for the scholarship, an average result of 70 or above is required across four exams, with no single exam result being permitted
Faress Arafat
T
he healthcare system in Gaza has long served as the lifeline and final hope for its people. Even before the war, years of blockade and closed border crossings made access to treatment abroad nearly impossible. The people of Gaza depended almost entirely on local hospitals and the dedication of healthcare professionals working under extreme pressure. However, with the onset of war, this system was not just overwhelmed — it became a target. The Israeli military systematically destroyed major hospitals, including Al-Shifa, and killed over 1,300 healthcare workers. Among them were leading specialists like orthopedic surgeon Dr. Adnan Al-Borsh. In this article, I want to shed light on the reality inside hospitals during the war. This war is unlike any before it longer, more brutal, and more destructive. Over 50,000 people have been killed, the majority of them women and children. Most of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced from their homes. My personal experience On a personal level, I worked as an emergency nurse at Al-Shifa Hospital from the first days of the war. The situation was far worse than anything I could have imagined. Dozens of injured people arrived all at once, many of them needing intensive care due to the scale of the explosions. What broke my heart most was the number of children an overwhelming, endless stream of small bodies. I was constantly fighting with myself: Where do I begin? Who can I save first? These weren’t simple injuries. Sometimes we couldn’t even tell where the bleeding was coming from or how to start treating it. Children came in
with missing limbs but still breathing, and others barely hanging on offered a faint chance of revival. But we lacked nearly everything: diagnostic tools, equipment, and even the most basic supplies. We did everything we could, but too often, we failed. The ER looked like a pool of blood, hour after hour. We ran without rest. Injuries poured in like a waterfall. The smell of death filled the air and I can still remember it. It won’t leave my mind. Children of Gaza are not like other children in the world I can’t describe everything, but what haunted me most was the children’s suffering. I would sit alone and wonder: How will they go on? How can they play again with no arms or legs? Who will support them? Who will remind them to dream? I used to hear that “dreams have no limits,” but how can they dream when their futures were shattered by flames? I wrapped children’s bodies with my own hands. I failed to save many. I hated telling parents their child had died. I hated myself when I saw mothers collapsing in grief. But we kept going, we had to. I remember the desperate eyes of parents searching for their children in the chaos. Are they alive, or in the morgue? Some children arrived completely alone the sole survivors of their families. We didn’t know their names. We gave them numbers. Some had lost their memory from the trauma. Some never woke up again. We are in a constant struggle Day by day, the situation worsened. Supplies ran out. The wounded kept coming. We fell into a real famine. Hospitals were bombed. We feared for our own lives and our families outside were at risk too. I never imagined I’d search for my own family among the wounded, but many of
my colleagues had. One night, homes near my family were bombed. Communication was cut. The injured flooded in. I was frantic, searching among the wounded, among the bodies in the morgue. I couldn’t find them. I broke down and begged medics to let me search with them. They refused. Hours later, I found out my family had survived and fled to a displacement camp. This is the reality for every health worker in Gaza today. No safety. No resources. Only exhaustion and the grief that they have endured over seventeen months of relentless war, killing, and bloodshed. Even after leaving Gaza, my heart remains there. I speak with my colleagues daily. I once asked my colleague Najah, a student nurse, what the hardest moment was for her. I don’t know why I asked but her answer broke me. She said after Al-Shifa was destroyed, patients were sent to small, illequipped hospitals. These patients arrived with multiple complex injuries but had no beds. They were treated on the floor, in unsafe environments. They were often beyond saving. Sometimes, they had to amputate limbs without anesthesia or sterile tools, just to give a patient a chance to live. Najah told me she felt crushed. As a nursing student, she was still learning but she had no choice. She had to continue. She had to try. But she also carried the painful contradiction: she had been taught that healthcare is a human right yet all she saw was death, destruction, and forgotten humanity. Faress is studying a Master’s in Global Health at Trinity via a scholarship agreed at the May 2024 encampment.
to go underneath a total result of 65. To achieve the scholarship –also termed ‘Schols’– a student must receive a First Class Honours average across all four exam papers, over 70 in two out of the four exams, and no less than 65 in the other two. The number of elected scholars fluctuates year on year with no cap on the number of students that can be awarded the honour. In 2022 51 scholars were elected and in 2005 80 scholars were announced. The earliest available online record of a scholars’ list is from 1925, which lists 22 scholars in total - presumably due
to fewer students enrolled in higher education. Scholars of Trinity College receive rooms on campus and Trinity Halls for up to nine months of the year - free of charge, their tuition fees are waived, and they are entitled to attend Commons - a free three course meal throughout term-time weekdays, and receive a small salary of 254 euro. Scholars may also put ‘Sch.’ after their name if they so wish. The full list of scholars’ names is available on The University Times website: www.universitytimes.ie. PAUL SHARP FROM SHARPPIX.IE
Three New Societies Recognised and Six Derecognised by CSC Eliora Abramson
Amy Wei Embodiment and choice: the power, history, and place of statues.
Felice Basbøll The case for abolishing the Dignity, Respect, and Consent Service
Eve McGann Meet the man who is fasting for peace in Gaza
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Editor: Brídín Ní Fhearraigh-Joyce Volume XV, Issue II ISSN: Phone: (01) 646 8431 Email: editor@universitytimes.ie Website: universitytimes.ie
This newspaper is produced with the financial support of Trinity College Students’ Union, but maintains a mutually agreed policy of editorial independence.
To contact UT email: The Editor editor@universitytimes.ie
PAGE 7
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he Central Societies Committee (CSC) has recognised three new societies for the upcoming 2025-2026 year; the Linguistics Society, Trinity Think Tank, and Nordic Society. The Young Fine Gael Society has also regained recognition after being derecognised earlier in the year due to a failure to submit their Secretary report to the CSC for two years consecutively. The DUNeS (DU Neurodiversity Society), Eastern European, Filipino, South Asian and Dance societies and Trinity’s Women’s Network gained full recognition after being previously provisionally approved. The Amnesty, AMSI (Association of Medical Students Ireland), Caledonian, Chinese, Karting, and Labour societies have been derecognised due to their failure to submit a secretary report two years in a row.
Also derecognised is Trinity’s Ógra Shinn Féin, due to a failure to submit a grant application two years in a row. NetSoc is also being derecognised following a review of their activity during a previous suspension. In March, the CSC awarded the Filipino society as Best Small Society. Qsoc won Best Medium Society, and Trinity Orchestra won the award for the best large society. Along with Best Large Society, Trinity Orchestra also won Best Trip for their visit to University of Milan’s to perform Aula Magna as well as Best Fresher to their member Sinead Fleming. Earlier this year, the CSC introduced a new policy that states that any society that fails to have a membership of over 50 members for two years in a row would face derecognition.
Following this policy Trinity Social Democrats, Trinity Young Greens, Fianna Fáil (Cumann Wolfe Tone), Ógra Shinn Féin TCD, Workers’ Party TCD, TCD People Before Profit and Trinity Young Fine Gael signed a letter stating, “We all stand united in the belief that no party on campus should be shut down; we all play a vital role in student politics, and the de-recognition of any one of us would be an affront to the principles of free political association within a democratic society. The CSC should not have the ability to decide which parties can and cannot have representation on campus.” Conchúr Ó Cathasaigh has been elected the next chairperson of the CSC and will be the first to have the role under its new paid, full-time designation.