Dr Al Muderis fled Iraq in 1999, two years after qualifying from Baghdad University, when he was ordered to amputate the ears from Iraqi soldiers who had deserted from Saddam’s insane regime. When his hospital supervisor was murdered in cold blood before his eyes he fled to Jordan before making his way to Java, via Abu Dhabi and Malaysia, where he boarded a people smuggling boat crammed with 150 passengers bound for Christmas Island. He spent the harrowing journey treating his fellow asylum seekers, who included several pregnant women, for severe sea sickness. “There was no room even to sit, many people were just standing on deck,’’ he said. Dr Al Muderis said there was nothing special about refugees, who represent a slice of society including the “good, the bad and the ugly”. But he said no one deserved to be known as a number like he was for 10 months in Curtin Detention Centre where he was known simply as “Number 982’’. “People should never be a number, I don’t keep numbers, people have names,” he said. After being told by then Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock that his qualifications would never be recognised in Australia, the young refugee medico emerged into Australian society and worked from Mildura to Canberra to prove his worth. He obtained a job as Surgical Registrar at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne before placements at Bendigo, Wollongong and Canberra Hospitals. “It was during my time at Austin Hospital that I studied to fulfil my dream to become an orthopedic robotics limb surgeon; a most fascinating and rewarding profession working with cutting-edge technology to assist those who have lost legs in combat, or through other health and accident reasons,’’ he said. https://youtube/watch?v=OuLyd6vzopA
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 02:54:48 +0000
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