On the 8th episode of Mycelial, we speak with Dr Herwig Drobetz.

Professor and surgeon Dr Drobetz is an Austrian Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon operating and living in Lismore Australia, who also spends time every year serving in humanitarian aid missions with Red Cross and Medicines Sans Frontiers which translates to Doctors Without Borders.

In this episode we talk about these relief operations working as a humanitarian doctor in Syria, Yemen and Gaza. Dr Drobetz has been to Gaza now 3 times. Twice before Al Aqsa Flood where he worked on injuries that resulted from the March of Return and once during this latest ongoing aggression on Gaza in Rafah hospitals since Oct 7.

Herwig tells us the harsh realities of being on the ground in the worlds first live streamed genocide in Gaza, the stories that most broke his heart from there and his other missions and the surreal privilege of being able to come and go from a war zone in a support role.

We also talk about the hypocrisy of western medical institutions of condemning Russia over their bombing of a hospital whilst staying silent on the over 1000 attacks on hospitals and medical staff in Gaza in the last 2 years.

And we zoom out to examine the fine line between humanitarian medicine and colonialism and Herwigs efforts to curb the latter with a rogue group of doctors // and much more

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Massive Gratitude and Respect to Professor Dr Herwig Drobetz for his time, action and wisdom.

If you want to get in contact with Dr Drobetz you can contact him on email herwig.dro@gmail.com

And if you’d like to donate to the incredible work MSF or Red Cross are doing in communities that need support the most, please donate or support your time via https://msf.org.au or https://www.redcross.org - these organisations need more than just medical staff and a wide range of volunteer and paid roles are available for war and austere environments.

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At this point, this project is 100% self funded by me and my recycled clothing business NIRANIA so you can also support my business on instagram https://www.instagram.com/nirania_collective

Also big thanks to Juman for the music
https://open.spotify.com/artist/77pkM8fFPgStKyD3G2Qr4B

This podcast is broadcast from the First Nation ancestral sacred lands of Bundjalung in so called Australia. I would like to pay my respects to the Elders, past, present and emerging, and any indigenous Elders listening in. I’d also like to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded in this country. Always was, always will be aboriginal land.