Irvine and Kilwinning's MP hopes to return to Palestine this Autumn to provide more medical help in Gaza.

Dr Philippa Whitford – who worked as a volunteer in Gaza in the early nineties – is planning to return once again to Palestine, providing no one calls any unexpected General Elections.

During the visit she will provide further specialist training and support to medical staff involved in the treatment of Breast Cancer within Gaza and East Jerusalem.

This is to help enable women to have better surgical options with fewer side effects than currently exists.

Speaking to the Irvine Times, Dr Whitford said: "Because I worked in Gaza as a volunteer in the nineties, obviously the issue of Palestine is quite close to my heart. So I tend to be quite active on things like Palestine and human rights in the Middle East.

Describing life in the Gaza Strip, she said: “Obviously it was quite hard, we went six months after the first Gulf War, in 1991/1992. It was quite difficult but I loved it. The people were really friendly.

"We worked really hard but it was incredibly rewarding so I really enjoyed it.

"I went back out in 2010 but couldn't get into Gaza, and we just visited Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"Through becoming an MP I met up with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians and I got to go out last Easter for two weeks – a week in East Jerusalem and a week in Gaza – operating, doing clinics, running teaching workshops to try and help to add extra training.

"So hopefully I'm going back out in September for two weeks.

Although Dr Whitford doesn't see any positive end in sight to the dire living conditions of the people of Gaza.

"Sadly the situation in a lot of ways is worse now", she said. "Inside Gaza, you don't have Israeli settlers or soldiers, so there's less clashes other when you have these invasions like 2009, 2012 or 2014.

"But because they are completely trapped, they're under blockade, Breast Cancer patients, which is my speciality, can't easily get to Jerusalem for radiotherapy, so they all have what we would consider very old fashioned operation and have the whole breast removed. They have all of the lymph nodes removed from under their arm so half of them get lymphoedema, which is a big swollen arm and which is quite difficult to manage in a hot place.

"So you have people who are having a really poor cancer treatment and that applies to lots of different conditions, because it's hard to get drugs in and it's hard to get patients out, and certainly on research done on 2011 showed survival in Breast Cancer was only half of what it is here.

"Medical Aid for Palestinians are now setting up a three year project to really try and work with surgeons and doctors in Gaza to try and improve training and education and see if we can help improve it as much as we can, but the blockade just makes doing anything impossible and sadly I think they are further from peace.

"The whole situation in the Middle East is just a lot worse. The West talk a good game but we don't tend to follow through.

"I was there when the Peace Process started a quarter of a century ago. People were really hopeful at the time but it all fizzled away into nothing.

"It's just tragic."