Mads Fredrik Gilbert (born 2 June 1947) is a Norwegian physician, humanitarian, activist, and politician for the Red Party. He is a specialist in anesthesiology and head of the emergency medicine department at the University Hospital of North Norway and Professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø.
Gilbert has a broad range of experience from international humanitarian work, especially in locations where medical and political issues merge. Since the 1970s, he has been actively involved with solidarity work concerning Palestinians, and he has served as a doctor for several periods in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon for NORWAC. His efforts have been central to leading the city of Tromsø, since 2001 a twin town of Gaza, to claim to be the city that has sent more health workers to the Palestinian territories than any other in the world. His book on the Gaza War, Eyes on Gaza (2009), has been translated into several languages. Gilbert has been lauded as a "hero" in Norwegian media for his work in Gaza; his humanitarian work has been hailed by Prime Ministers Kåre Willoch, Jens Stoltenberg and Erna Solberg, and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. On 6 May 2013, King Harald V appointed Gilbert as a Commander of the Order of St. Olav for his "wide-ranging services to emergency medicine." He has also done volunteer work at a kibbutz.
Gilbert has been the subject of controversy for his political activism. In November 2014, it was announced that Israel had indefinitely banned Gilbert from entering Gaza, officially for security reasons. The decision sparked outrage and the Norwegian government subsequently requested that the decision be reversed. The Israeli Foreign Ministry later clarified that the ban regarded setting foot in Israel, not Gaza. Israel, Haaretz wrote, is the only available transit point for entering the Gaza Strip when the Rafah border from Egypt is closed.
Early life and education
Gilbert was born on 2 June 1947 in Porsgrunn, Telemark, to a family of French Huguenot ancestry. His father Mads Fredrik Gilbert was an electrician, while his mother was a nurse. His family soon relocated to his grandmother's one-bedroom apartment in Oslo and he grew up in the borough of Majorstua until the age of 10 and later in Lambertseter. In the mid-1960s he enrolled in the Oslo Cathedral School. After finishing high school, he briefly studied veterinary medicine, however, he switched to general medicine following an accident involving his younger brother. He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1973.
He describes growing up in a "very political household" with many political discussions. He describes his parents as well-informed about the world and his father specifically as very well-read. He describes his mother as an inspiration, who taught him to think critically and be aware about siding with the weak.
Political career
Gilbert's political activism was sparked by the Vietnam War, and he initially became a member of the Solidarity Committee for Vietnam (Solkom). He later joined the Marxist-Leninist SUF(m-l) and the Maoist AKP(m-l), and was an active member (the latter party only accepted "active membership") during the 1970s.
He is currently a member of the revolutionary socialist Red Party, and has represented its direct predecessor, the Red Electoral Alliance, the electoral front of the AKP(m-l) in the Troms county council for three terms, from 1979 to 1987 (two terms), and from 1995 to 1999.
Medical career
Since 1976, he has mainly worked at the anaesthesiology department at the hospital in Tromsø, the current University Hospital of North Norway (UNN). For a while he worked at Gravdal hospital in Lofoten. He did research at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and received the Dr. Med. doctoral degree at the University of Tromsø in 1991 for a thesis on metabolism and blood circulation during anaesthesia. He became Professor of emergency medicine at the University of Tromsø and head of the emergency medicine department at the University Hospital of North Norway in 1995.