An English doctor who worked in hospitals in Gaza, operating on victims of Israeli bombs, was set to speak in Columbus at multiple venues this week until the events were canceled.
Ohio State University canceled its Global Health Symposium, where Oxford University cancer surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard was set to be the keynote speaker on Wednesday. Maynard then scheduled a speech at the Ohio History Connection, but he said that was also canceled.
Maynard was supposed to speak about how Israel's bombing of Gaza is also an attack on healthcare workers there.
Maynard has been to Gaza multiple times since the Oct. 7 attacks. He said Israel bombed hospitals while he's been inside preparing to operate on cancer patients.
Maynard said he wants to tell people about his experiences and about the war crimes he believes are being committed by Israel. He said the university, the history nonprofit and even venues in the United Kingdom are trying to silence voices like his.
"Those of us who want to talk about what's happening in Gaza, what's happened in Palestine, we're being silenced," Maynard said. "The world, the western world, governments of the western world, the media, they're not allowing this information to get out there."
Carol Bradford, dean of the Ohio State University College of Medicine, wrote in an email that "[g]iven the scale of activity currently occurring at the university and the dynamic nature of the environment in which similar events and programs will have to be managed and overseen, we have made the decision to cancel this year’s Global Health Symposium and all affiliated Ohio State-sponsored activities."
Bradford acknowledged this was disappointing news to students, staff and faculty who were helping plan the symposium.
A spokesman for the college declined to comment further or elaborate on what Bradford said caused the cancellation.
Ohio State University spokesman Ben Johnson confirmed President Ted Carter's office was involved in the decision. Johnson declined to answer additional questions.
Maynard was set to be the symposium's keynote speaker. His speech was supposed to be titled "Gaza: A War On Healthcare."
The symposium has been held since 2018, but was cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the event was canceled, Maynard then sought out the Ohio History Connection as a venue to hold his speech on the same day that the health symposium was supposed to take place.
Maynard informed WOSU that event was also canceled. He said the organization told him their funding situation is precarious because of rollbacks from the federal government.
That same day, the Ohio History Connection had $250,000 revoked by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to put up 10 new history markers around Ohio to commemorate LGBTQ+ history.
Neil Thompson, spokesperson for the Ohio History Connection, didn't say why the event was canceled.
Maynard spoke to WOSU on Monday about the cancellations. He said he is now scheduling several other events around Columbus. One took place Monday at the Columbus Metropolitan Library. Another is happening Wednesday at the Columbus Mennonite Church in Clintonville at 5 p.m.
The U.S. has revoked green cards and other immigration documentation for political dissidents in the past several weeks. More than half a dozen students at Ohio State have had their visas revoked by the U.S. government for unknown reasons.
Maynard said he believes Ohio State and other organizations are scared to allow voices like his as the U.S. government cracks down on dissidents of Israel in the country.
"Whether it is pure cowardice, whether there's malice there or not, and whether it's all due to external pressure, we can all speculate. But they are very, very frightened of allowing this to get out there," Maynard said.
Maynard said the experiences of humanitarian aid workers like himself are the only reliable evidence coming out of Gaza, because Israel is restricting journalists from entering. He said humanitarian workers want to tell the world what is going on.
He called the conditions they are working under to help patients "appalling."
"We're effectively operating on predominantly bomb victims, also gunshot victims, and doing major trauma surgery in the most appalling circumstances with very few resources, no painkillers, very little equipment to use for the surgery," Maynard said.
Maynard said he was inside the al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip and heard bombs going off all around them, every hour of every day. He said they evacuated after Israel bombed the hospital's intensive care unit next to the operating theatre he was in.
"It's not a trauma hospital, it's a very small hospital, normally has about 150 patients, it had about 850 while I was there," Maynard said.
Maynard said the al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed days before he was set to visit Gaza and operate on cancer patients there.
Israel claims Hamas is using hospitals as cover for their military operations.
Maynard disputes this, but doesn't rule out the Palestinian militant group using underground tunnels underneath the structures.
"I know these hospitals well. I've worked in them for many, many years, particularly Shifa Hospital, and I have never in all my many years of going to Gaza, ever seen any evidence of Hamas militant activity in these hospitals," Maynard said.
Maynard went as far as to call institutions like OSU and the Ohio History Connection complicit in the alleged genocide because of their refusal to let people speak critically of Israel.
"Every single one of us is going to be defined by how we react to events in Gaza. And history will not forget that these people have been silent," Maynard said.
