Although the leaders of Iran regard Israel as a Satan to be destroyed by nuclear
weapons, Israeli medicine is regarded as excellent by some Iranian doctors,
including one who consulted a senior physician at Kaplan Medical Center and
prevented complications that would have risked a pregnant woman’s
life.
Dr. Adi Weissbuch of the unit for at-risk pregnancies at the
Rehovot hospital was recently contacted with urgency via e-mail by a female
doctor who identified herself as “NN” from an Iranian-university
hospital.
RELATED:
Visiting nurse saves life of elderly woman
Iranian chess master expelled for refusing to play IsraeliShe had read a comprehensive article published in an
international medical journal in which Weissbuch wrote about a rare genetic
complication of pregnancy and supplied his e-mail address at the
bottom.
Consultation was urgent, the Iranian doctor wrote, because
according to Islamic law, abortion is forbidden after the 18th week of
pregnancy, and her patient was already in her 16th week. She sent the Kaplan
physician a copy of lab results and asked his opinion.
Weissbuch wrote
back that on the basis of the data, there was very little chance that the woman
would have a healthy baby and that delivering the baby would endanger her life.
The Rehovot doctor had discussed a very similar case in his
article.
After receiving the information, the Iranian doctor advised the
woman to undergo an abortion immediately, and she did so.
Weissbuch said
that he had received numerous requests for medical help via email from various
parts of the world, but that this was the first time one had come from
Iran.
“For me as a doctor, caring for patients is not dependent on
nationality, gender or religion. We are morally bound to give proper treatment
and advice to whoever needs it. From my side, of course all of my correspondence
with the Iranian physician mentioned ‘The State of Israel’ under my full name,
but she was not dissuaded by this fact,” he said.