Pilot project to put video cameras in MDA mobile intensive care units to better treat victims

MDA asks for blood donations before Pessah while volunteers collect food for the needy.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
MDA (photo credit: COURTESY MDA)
MDA
(photo credit: COURTESY MDA)
A number of mobile intensive care Magen David Adom ambulances will for the first time have a video camera on board to enable MDA experts and hospital physicians to see the patient and the circumstances in which he was hurt or became ill and give advice to paramedics before reaching the emergency room.
The pilot project, in which data and pictures will be sent, is expected to improve treatment of the injured or ill.
The arrangement will begin in a few months “under exacting directives of the Health Ministry and MDA and preserving the privacy and rights of patients,” MDA said.
The camera will be operated only when necessary for help in diagnosis from the hospital and not on an automatic basis, MDA said.
Oren Blustein, a lawyer and assistant to the MDA director-general, said that the system is the first of its kind in Israel and was developed by MDA. It will improve decision-making in real time, he added.
Meanwhile, with Passover and national holidays coming up, MDA asked the public to donate O-type and RH-minus blood of all types, due to a severe shortage.
Blood donation always declines around the holidays, when residents are on holiday, abroad, or away from their regular routine. The shortage, MDA said, is liable to result in postponement of nonemergency operations.
 
Courtesy MDA
Courtesy MDA
Every blood donor is entitled to a year’s blood insurance for himself and his close family. Blood will be taken at the central blood bank at Tel Hashomer Mondays and Wednesdays between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., on Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Fridays from 8 a.m.
to noon. More information about donation can be found at www.mdais.org/ dam or by calling 03-530-0400.
Thousands of Magen David Adom volunteers – teenagers and adults – are collecting food packages for the needy before Passover so they can enjoy the Seder and the whole holiday.
The kosher-for-Passover food will be collected between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.
weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays and from the end of Shabbat to 11 p.m.
The food donations can be made at two major supermarket chains – Rami Levy and Yeinot Bitan – and at smaller supermarkets and groceries around the country through March 31.
MDA is being joined in the effort by the Orot Hessed organization.
The most popular products among the needy are matza, wine, grape juice, oil, sugar, matza flour, chocolate spread, coffee, cans of tuna, pickles, soft drinks, cookies, cakes, haroset, potatoes, juice concentrate, long-life milk and more.