Weather keeps medical emergency services busy
01/11/2013 04:12
MDA rushes several women to hospitals to give birth; others give birth at home as no time to get them there via ambulance.
Ambulance in slush-covered streets of Safed Photo: Courtesy Magen David Adom
Although shopping and public transportation in Jerusalem and other hilly areas
dropped as far below normal as the temperatures on Thursday, health services
still continued to function.
The voluntary organization Yad Sarah took
patients for chemotherapy, dialysis, elective surgery and fertility treatment
for over 13 hours with their Nechonit vans and other vehicles supplied with snow
chains. Volunteers also took brides to salons to prepare for their
weddings.
Jacques Meir, an 89-year-old Yad Sarah volunteer who lends out
medical equipment, showed up for duty as usual. Among those to receive crutches
were people who fell down in the snow. Oxygen balloons were brought to the homes
of people with respiratory problems, and patients around the country kept in
touch with the Jerusalem headquarters thanks to their emergency
beepers.
Magen David Adom said that it rushed several women to hospitals
to give birth, while a handful of women gave birth at home because there was no
time to get them there via ambulance.
One was a 33-year-old Safed woman
who gave birth easily to a healthy girl and was taken to Ziv Hospital by
ambulance afterward.
Rivka Neuman, a 77-year-old Ashdod woman, was
brought to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot after the wind blew her into the air
and she fell, breaking her left hip. She was due to undergo surgery to repair
the fracture.
The woman, who immigrated from Romania in 1947, said she
had never experienced such wind and such a fall.