Giving Till it Hurts

January 21, 2009 - 9:49 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Medical Breakthroughs 

They expected a large number of people – maybe 20,000 potential donors. But Ezer Mizion got far more than it bargained for on Wednesday, when it held a mass national campaign to add Israelis to its bone marrow registry; over 60,000 people crowded the 80 testing stations the organization had set up around the country, with long lines outside many of them as people waited patiently for their turn to be tested.

The large crowds had gathered at the donation stations to help find a bone marrow match for Dan, a three year old boy from Ramat Hasharon, and Amit, a six year old girl from Kfar Sava. Both have rare forms of leukemia, and both have rare tissue types that are found in less than 2% of the population, about 1 in 30,000 – meaning that finding a donor with compatible bone marrow with theirs for a transplant, which the two children desperately need to fight the cancer that has caused their own blood and lymphatic system to go haywire. So, the Ezer Mizion organization, which provides medical support services for those who need ongoing medical help, organized the bone marrow donor recruitment drive, setting up dozens of stations around the country on Wednesday where Israelis could go and have a small sample of their bone marrow taken in order to determine whether they could be compatible donors for Dan and Amit. amit

The organization has run similar recruitment drives in the past, but Wednesday’s drive was by far the largest ever. My daughter waited on line for a chunk of time waiting for the test, which doesn’t necessarily hurt, but can be lengthy. Between the wait, the test, and the recovery time, she spent over two hours on the project – and there were thousands of others like her around the country, who took time off from work and school to help.

Why were so many willing to help this time? According to an acquaintance who works with the organization, Israelis are in a “giving” mood, having gotten into the habit in recent weeks, collecting supplies to send to soldiers on the front. Ezer Mizion established its marrow donot bank ten years ago, and so far has taken samples from 380,000 Israelis – and helped find hundreds of matches for individuals with leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and immune deficiency syndromes.

If you donate marrow and your marrow is not a match for Dan and Amit, don’t worry – your information will go into the Ezer Mizion database, and you might get called on to help in the future. Besides marrow, Ezer Mizion needs money, too – in order to test the samples it collects (each sample costs $45 to test). Their phone number in Israel is 1800-236-236; any help will be greatly appreciated.

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Israel picks up the bill

January 5, 2009 - 3:17 PM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Medical Breakthroughs, Politics, War 

While the news is full of Israel’s “crimes” against the civilian population in Gaza, here’s one “crime” you probably haven’t heard about. Israel routinely admits residents of Palestinian Authority controlled territory into its hospitals – and the Israeli taxpayer foots the bill. Not only that; Israel even helps pay for treatment of patients in PA hospitals, where the patient never even comes near an Israeli hospital!

While many of us probably have heard of exceptional cases of Israeli doctors treating PA Arabs, I, and probably you, were under the impression that it was limited to high profile or complicated cases, such as the Save a Child’s Heart Foundation – with ill PA residents coming to Israel as a last resort. That kind of thing has been going on for a long time – even during the current war, as evidenced by the photo (courtesy of the IDF spokesperson), captioned “Injured Palestinian receiving medical treatment by Israeli and Palestinian medical personnel at the Erez crossing.” 010109injured2_b

But Israel’s contribution to the health of Palestinian Authority residents goes far beyond emergency assistance; according to some folks I interviewed for a story on a new database system being developed by an Israeli software company for hospitals in Bethlehem and Ramallah (an amazing story in and of itself!), Israel’s Health Ministry often pays for care of PA residents both in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority itself!

The company building the database, called i-Rox, is located in Bnei Brak, and consists almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox women programmers (this story just gets better all the time!). According to the company’s CEO, the programmers are building in a component that allows PA hospitals to share their information with Israel’s Health Ministry, because in some cases, Israel’s health funds help provide – and pay for – treatment of patients in PA hospitals.

Yes, I had a hard time believing it too – until I Googled this World Health Organization PDF document. According to this eye-opening reporting (for 2006-7), “Approximately 60,000 Palestinians from the West Bank area have been treated in Israel hospitals over the past year. Around 20,000 were hospitalized, and about 40,000 received ambulatory services of all sorts. Approximately 5,000 patients from the Gaza area have been treated in Israeli hospitals over the past year – about 2,000 hospitalized and about 3,000 receiving ambulatory services of all sorts. Among the patients receiving medical care in Israel, approximately 2,500 were children, the majority of whom received long-term treatment for cancer and complicated operations.”

As far as Israel providing services to PA hospitals, “Public health laboratories at the Israel Ministry of Health continue to regularly provide assistance to the Palestinian Health Authority in the way of laboratory tests for poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, influenza and other viral diseases,” the report says. Israel – via the health funds and the Health Ministry – continued those tests throughout the year, “in spite of the fact that the Palestinian Authority delays or halts payments.” Of course, the anti-Israel forces out there have never let themselves get confused by the facts – but at least we know the truth, and in this day and age, that’s no small feat.

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