Five medical experts from Indonesia are graduating Thursday from a course at
Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center on coping with natural and man-made
catastrophes.
They are among a group of 27 physicians and nurses from 17
countries taking part in a simulated mass casualty event (MCE).
Indonesia
is the world’s most populous Muslim country, but it has no diplomatic relations
with Israel.
Rambam management said the simulation is part of the eighth
course of its kind, being held from November 6 through the end of this week. It
is jointly sponsored by Rambam, the Foreign Ministry and the Health
Ministry.
Rambam’s staffers are experts in trauma, emergency and mass
casualty situations due to being the main hospital in the North. For years, the
hospital has received soldiers injured on the northern border and beyond, as
well as civilians caught in home-front wars and terrorist attacks.
“In
the course, we learn how to build a system for operating in emergency, trauma
and MCE. We did not come to seek medical information, but guidance on how to get
organized in case of these situations,” said neurology professor Andi Asadul
Islam, from Hassan Udim University in Makassar, Indonesia. “Rambam’s system for
trauma is the best there is, and we can learn a lot from it.”
The group
will receive their diplomas at the ceremony at Rambam.
“We don’t have a
good system,” Islam continued. Indonesia’s broad geography presents specific
challenges in supplying medical care, he explained. With some 250 million
citizens scattered among five large islands and thousands of smaller ones,
Indonesia spans an area, from west to east, equal to the length of the
US.
Rambam also houses the only trauma system in the North, serving nine
general hospitals who cannot take care of severe-trauma patients. The hospital’s
Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency and Mass Casualty Situations leads
instruction in this field nationwide and regularly holds international seminars
for doctors and nurses from around the world. The center also sends
representatives to different countries to teach courses and holds workshops for
NATO personnel.
“I had heard about the Rambam course from colleagues who
had taken it, and they said it was great,” said Asti Puspita Rini, who manages
the 118 Emergency Ambulance Service Foundation in Jakarta, the capital. “It has
been an excellent course... We won’t be able to implement each and every thing
we learned but will certainly adopt parts of the program.”
The course
involves theoretical lectures and enables participants to receive a wide view of
the activities of the various emergency medicine units. They also visit IDF
simulation centers and Magen David Adom headquarters.
The foreign
participants are also taken to national and tourist sites, including the Yad
Vashem Holocaust memorial.
“As a Muslim, it was especially interesting
for me to see the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem,” said Islam. “Some of my friends
and family were afraid and didn’t want me to come here because of what they see
on TV,” said Rini, “but it’s totally different than what the media
show.”
They were also introduced to humous.
“Everything is
well-organized and perfect,” said Dr. Edi Prasetyo, medical adviser on home care
in Jakarta. “We get to see the big picture – how the whole nationwide system
works.”