Compassion amid the atrocities

Ziv Medical Centre

As the world’s capitals and leaders discuss how to respond to last week’s chemical weapons attack in Damascus – the most repugnant in a series of atrocities committed in the war that is raging in Syria – it can be easy to lose sight of the daily human toll this conflict is extracting. Though Damascus is only some two hundred kilometres from Jerusalem (or shorter than the distance between Canberra and Sydney, as I tell my Australian friends), the conflict in Syria can feel like a world away.

from the Times of Israel    http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israeli-compassion-amidst-the-atrocities/

But in the town of Safed in the north of Israel, better known as one of Judaism’s Four Holy Cities, the front-line of the conflict in Syria feels very close. At Ziv Medical Centre, without fanfare or publicity, they are treating a steady and growing stream of wounded Syrians from the conflict. Some 72 Syrian patients have been admitted to Ziv Medical Centre since February.

When I visited earlier this week, 15 hospital beds were being used to treat such victims, the youngest a girl of only eight. They have harrowing stories and horrific injuries. Suffering from shrapnel and bullet wounds, burns and crush injuries, they have somehow managed to limp to the border with Israel, from where they are then transferred to Ziv Medical Centre. On admission they are malnourished, fatigued and traumatised. Many have lost family members. But they are immensely relieved. If they had remained in Syria, the extent of their injuries means most would have died or been left permanently incapacitated.

At Ziv Hospital they get the best medical care on offer to any Israeli, from surgeons and physicians who are quite literally the best in their field, having authored textbooks on the treatment of injuries from armed conflict. On the day I visited I saw how doctors had managed to save the leg of an 8-year old girl from amputation by use of some of the most advanced surgical techniques and injury treatment protocols. A 15-year old girl whose leg was amputated in Syria had been fitted with a prosthetic limb. Against the odds, the doctors at Ziv had managed to save her other leg. This girl was now learning to walk again, taking her first steps.

Arabic-speaking doctors, nurses and social workers are all available to communicate with the Syrian patients and help ease their anxieties. They are provided time and space to recover and rehabilitate and supplied with basic provisions, including clothes and toiletries donated by generous residents from Safed. The multi-ethnic staff at Ziv Hospital – drawn from the Jewish, Arab and Druze communities – reflect the diversity of Israel. They are dedicated and compassionate professionals driven by a profound sense of humanitarianism. They do not stop to ask the patient’s nationality or religion as she is wheeled into the emergency theatre in a critical condition. They simply do their utmost to save life and treat injury.

Ziv Hospital is a profound example of humanity and decency at its most compelling. It is Israel at its very best, and a side of Israel that the world too rarely sees or acknowledges. With all the tales of human woe and misery that continue to emerge from Syria, such small stories of hope should be cherished.

 

Emek Medical Centre in Israel  

Larry Rich http://www.israelemb.org/washington/Speakers-Guide/Science/Pages/Larry-Rich.aspx

 

The civilised world is horrified at the carnage in Syria which has resulted in a horrific death and injury toll. While an international refugee exodus is taking place, Israel, as a humanitarian gesture, is providing medical care for injured Syrians who, having crossed the border into Israel are witnessing human decency and kindness bestowed upon them by their sworn enemy. For the Israeli doctors and nurses it is just part of their dedication to all patients under their care, whatever their political creed or religion.  

 

Larry Rich, initially himself  a patient and subsequently Director of Development & International Public Relations  affiliated to the Emek Medical Centre in Israel.  In his book  “Voices from Armageddon”  Larry recounts his personal experience of this humanitarian doctor-patient host-guest relationship witnessed at first hand in Emek Yezrael hospital (Valley of Jezreel hospital) in northern Israel.

 

Emek Medical Centre is situated in Afula, a Jezreel Valley municipality near Megiddo -- the fabled site of the future Armageddon, a geographically strategic area that has seen more battles during the last 4,000 years than any other place on earth. The Centre’s professional staff mirrors the national ratio; 20% overall is Arab, while 20% of the heads of medical departments are Arab Muslims, Christians, Druse, or Circassians.

Listening to Larry Rich will give a deeper insight into human relations between seemingly implacable enemies, as he provides moving accounts of Jew and Arab finding that they are friends not enemies.  Over the past 13 years, he has written about and shared the many instances that he and staffers have witnessed at the facility – from a Jewish surgeon operating on a wounded Arab terrorist during the Intifada, to an Arab nurse assuring a wary mother that the Jewish hospital was indeed a safe place for her sick child. He believes; “For years, I have considered Emek Medical Center with its human reality as a shining example of sanity in a world going mad -- literally a beacon of light and hope for anybody who cares to focus on something sane.”

 

Based on positive reactions to his speaking tour  in Dublin, Larry delivered several lectures in the United States in April 2012 to some challenging audiences; He spoke to a delegation of Arab leaders representing nearly a million Arabs in this region, the highest concentration of Muslims in the United States.

 

. http://hospitals.clalit.co.il/hospitals/emek/en-s/AboutUS/Pages/CoexistenceThroughMedicine.aspx

“These people came up to me afterwards and said they had never heard such a message coming out of Israel. They wanted to hear more about this co-operation at ground level. They want me to speak in their communities.”

 

Several universities have hosted Larry including the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and in Washington he spoke to Georgetown University medical students and faculty, and a large organization of hospital owners.

 

Flora Selwyn lives and works in St Andrews. She is the editor and publisher of “St Andrews in Focus” magazine. http://www.standrewsinfocus.com/.   St Andrews in Focus recently published an article on Emek Hospital that resulted in an email exchange between Larry and Flora. As a result, Flora has invited Larry to visit Scotland, Nov 1 – 8, 2013 when she intends to arrange a few talks…… 

 

The co-existence of Jewish and Arab residents of Israel not usually aired in Scotland. With this in mind Flora, with the help of SFI is  hoping that Larry will be granted permission to speak to MSPs at the Scottish Parliament, and also talk to audiences at Scottish universities.