By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Magen David Adom staffers in the North are not only treating those wounded in rocket attacks, but also going from one public shelter to another checking on the elderly, disabled and children who were unable to leave for safer locations.
Motti Kushnir, an MDA paramedic, said that "almost everybody with means has left. Those who are living in public shelters - except for short respites for buying food - are old people with health problems, children with asthma and others who can't easily get away."
Kushnir was part of an MDA team in Safed on Monday that saw crowded shelters lacking air conditioners and other equipment to make them comfortable. "There are 30 or 40 people - various families, Jews and Arabs - in each shelter. They have fans to circulate the air, and sometimes they have a TV set that someone brought down from his apartment and hooked up. They rarely go out, and the parents don't let the children out because they fear the rockets."
Among those needing MDA's medical attention are patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension and asthma. MDA routinely receives calls about people who feel unwell in shelters. When patients cannot properly be treated in the shelter, they are taken by ambulance to the hospital, Kushnir said.