Hadassah Medical Experts Were Key Players in Israel Rescue Mission To Haiti
2-Feb-2010
During the Israel Rescue Mission to Haiti following the earthquake, a Hadassah Medical Center obstetrician delivered the Israeli field hospital’s first baby and the mother, in gratitude, named him “Israel.” When the surgeons ran out of medical screws needed to mend limb fractures, a Hadassah operating room nurse located the remnants of a local factory and, in searching through the ruins, found exactly the machine he needed to transform the medical nails he had into screws.
During its two-week stay, the Israeli team treated 1,111 patients, performed 317 life-saving surgeries, and helped bring 16 babies into the world. The Israeli rescue mission, arranged and managed by the Medical Corps and the Home Front Command of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was comprised of several dozen physicians and nurses, including three physicians and a nurse from Hadassah, who immediately set up a field hospital in a soccer stadium in Port au Prince. The hospital was replete with surgical and medical departments, two operating rooms--including high-tech monitors, suctioning equipment, and ventilators--an intensive care unit, an emergency room, and a maternity ward.
United States President Bill Clinton, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, praised Israel for its efforts and thanked the team, on behalf of Haiti and the international community. "The Israeli facility was the only one capable of performing the advanced medical procedures that were needed,” he said.
Click here for a Ha’aretz article and video interview with Hadassah’s Dr. Shir Dar, who delivered the baby.
Click here to view a CNN video which shows the sophisticated field hospital that the Israeli medical team created to help the Haitian victims.
