Amid the coronavirus outbreak and Magen David Adom's (MDA) 90th anniversary, the ambulatory service had a busy 2020 aiding Israel's fight against the virus while performing its standard duties.
Some 2,000 MDA ambulances were stationed in 180 locations across the country, with 11 new stations opening in the past year. The service uses 600 medi-cycles, six segways, 40 MERVs, nine jeep-bulances, 48 bulletproof MICUs and ambulance and three coronavirus vaccine and testing caravans, among other vehicles.
Some 278 patients were evacuated with MDA's two ICU helicopters.
Some 30,000 volunteers, employees and National Service volunteers operated in the national EMS service. Some 1,500 new employees joined the service in the past year. The organization was staffed by 10,000 youth volunteers, 17,700 life guardians and 27,000 COVID-19 ambassadors in 2020, with the oldest volunteer being 89 years old and the youngest volunteer being just 15 years old.
MDA collected 3,456,450 coronavirus tests in 2020 and had vaccinated 60,000 people as of Sunday. Some 14,430 units of plasma were collected from recovered COVID-19 patients.
The service was busy during 2020, with teams dispatched every 30 seconds, totaling 1,046,358 callouts in the past year. More than 8,000,000 calls were received by MDA's 101 call center, with a call received every 7.2 seconds on average. More than 900 births were assisted by MDA teams.
Some 250,000 Israelis received CPR and first aid training from MDA and 507 youth volunteers were trained in Mass-Casualty Incident (MCI) response. MDA's blood services collected 269,958 units of blood from 42 blood mobiles, with 31.5% of blood donors being women and 19% of donors being first time donors.
"MDA volunteers and employees are proud to be part of the National Rescue Organization, which has been at the forefront of the Corona pandemic throughout the past year and will continue to help eradicate the epidemic with the help of the vaccination operation," said MDA director-general Eli Bin in a press release. "During 2020, MDA continued to advance technologically and developed dedicated life-saving applications, including a mobile application to cut off the chain of infection. In the vaccination operation that was at its peak. In 2021, too, we will continue to do everything we can for the citizens of the country and for the health of us all, in the days of the corona and beyond."