Jerusalem in the Spotlight

War – any war – inevitably leaves in its wake terrible personal tragedies. And the recent war forced upon Israel is no different in this respect. On both sides of the divide innocent families and children, men and women going about the daily business of living, have been caught up in the most horrific and ghastly side effects of war. One can now find tens of hundreds of tragic personal stories, of children killed in terror attacks, loved ones maimed by stray bullets, soldiers killed in the line of duty and families left homeless by the destruction inherent in war. But in the midst of these difficult and trying times, there is also hope. There is, despite the ongoing conflict, another side to the coin.

Despite more than 18 months of ongoing violence in which almost every other form of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation has broken down, Israel’s hospitals continue to provide top-flight medical treatment to Palestinian children, often shouldering the financial burdens of this care themselves.

Since the beginning of this war, 173 Palestinian children have been transferred to Israel to undergo heart surgery and other operations. And at the same time that Israel is being accused of a humanitarian disaster in the most recent fighting, the Israeli Ministry of Regional Cooperation is financing the operations of another 50 Palestinian children.

One of the most dramatic examples of this kind of medical mercy involved 7-year old Mahmoud Atya of Ramallah. Suffering from a rare and potentially fatal neurological disease, adrenoleukodystrophy, Mahmoud needed an immediate bone marrow donation. His13-year-old brother Omar was compatible, and Hadassah arranged for him to be brought from Ramallah, under heavy military curfew, to Jerusalem.

Before the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Israeli Civil Administration was responsible for paying for medical care for Palestinians. When the PA became an independent body this became its responsibility.

“But the PA never seemed to have a budget to pay for quality medical care in Israel,” Prof. Shimon Slavin, Chairman of Hadassah’s Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cancer Immunotherapy, relates. “And in most cases the patients themselves also have no means to pay.” Hadassah is extremely forthcoming in granting significant discounts to Palestinians with limited financial means. In addition, Slavin and other doctors often offer their services for free. “I see this as my way of contributing to eventual peace in this region,” he notes.

States Prof. Shmuel Shapira, deputy director general of Hadassah-University Hospital. “We are first and foremost a hospital, and that means we accept everyone and treat everyone in accordance with medical need.”

Shapira admits that it is hard to give the exact number of Palestinians that the hospital treats since “we do not classify our patients as to whether they are Israelis or Palestinians.” At Hadassah Ein Kerem, it is estimated that 20% of the patients treated are Palestinians and at Hadassah Mount Scopus, 50%.

At Wolfson Hospital in Tel Aviv, “Save the Heart of a Child”, a special project that brings children from all over the world to Israel for open-heart surgery, also treats Palestinian children. Since its inception, 250 Palestinian children have been operated on, 73 since the beginning of the current violence.

“We treat children in need of medical care and it is not important whether they are the children of our enemies or not,” Wolfson’s Dr. Akiva Tamir said in the Israeli media. “We had one Palestinian boy who underwent open-heart surgery on Passover eve after the staff had been informed of the Seder carnage in Netanya. They took a deep breath and went on. Human beings are all the same. Inside, we all look alike.”

The Jerusalem Foundation

[By courtesy of Corinne Boukobza (Israël).]