Shaare Zedek and the Hapisga taxi company pioneer a project to keep newborns safe on their way home.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHProf. Jonathan Halevy (center) at the opening of the program to lend out infant seats.(photo credit: JUDY SIEGEL)
If you or someone you know gives birth at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center (SZMC), don’t try to take the newborn home in a taxi from the Hapisga station adjacent to the hospital without an infant seat. Two representatives have signed a declaration on behalf of the drivers of its 160 taxis not to take babies and their families home unless the infants are secured in a safety seat.SZMC delivered 22,030 babies in 2014 – the largest number in Israel and probably in the world. Now the hospital wants all the newborns to arrive at their destination safely.Thanks to philanthropist Jackie Maltz, who donated 150 such pieces of equipment, Yad Sarah and hospital staffers, SZMC became the first medical center in the country where one can borrow an infant car seat on the spot.Yad Sarah, whose headquarters is just a block away, will help lend seats from the obstetrics department, while Hapisga has trained its drivers on how to buckle infants into the car seat.The Beterem organization trained medical personnel to promote safe travel with the newborns.In addition, SZMC director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy promised that nurses would teach parents never to leave small children unattended in vehicles.Yad Sarah director-general Moshe Cohen said that he hopes all other hospitals with maternity and pediatric departments will follow suit and use the SZMC model themselves. His organization now has 1,000 such seats to lend to parents around the country. Cohen added that there is a law forbidding newborns – and all children up to age eight – to be driven home without being placed in a safety seat, but it is not being enforced.
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