World
Lifesaving Partnership
Israeli and Palestinian doctors at Hadassah Hospital save lives.
enter the borders of the hospital, you
feel you have entered a different
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
world, far from the struggles and con-
tradictions of the outside. Everyone
Jerusalem
here works for human life independ-
he pair of surgeons — one
ent of anything else," said Dr.
Israeli, one Palestinian —
Marzouqa, still wearing blue hospital
examine the maze of tubes
scrubs after Mohammed's surgery.
taped to 10-year-old Mohammed
Dr. Marzouqa has to drive through
Salemeh's chest. They methodically
an Israeli checkpoint every day to reach
check his heart rate, oxygen levels and
his job at the hospital. Most days, he
breathing.
can pass through within minutes; but
The young patient's mother,
there are times, especially when ten-
Mariam, stands behind them, next to
the heart monitor. Her eyes grow wide sions run high because of Israeli mili-
tary activity in Bethlehem or because of
as she watches her son's chest slowly
warnings of a terrorist attack, when it
rise and fall.
can take up to two hours.
Mohammed is unconscious after six
Hadassah's two hospital campuses
hours of surgery at Hadassah Hospital
have
treated more terror victims than
in Ein Kerem; but he is in "excellent
any
other
medical center in the world
condition," the doctors assure Mariam.
years since the Palestinian
1/2
in
the
4
The doctors operated together on
intifada began, even when it meant
Mohammed, fixing the damaged aor-
treating terrorists and their victims in
tic valve with which he was born. A
the same room.
narrowing of the aortic valve opening
Hadassah also has reached out to the
made it difficult for blood to flow
Palestinian community by training
from the left ventricle to the aorta,
Palestinian doctors to open their own
which supplies the body with oxy-
pediatric oncology ward in a hospital in
genated blood.
eastern Jerusalem, training another doc-
On a piece of notebook paper, Dr.
tor with an eye toward creating the first
Bisher Marzouqa sketches out a dia-
pediatric intensive care unit in the West
gram of the procedure for Mariam, a
Bank city of Hebron and hosting a sup-
Palestinian Muslim who has brought
port group for Palestinian and Israeli
her son for treatment from the West
parents whose children have diabetes.
Bank city of Bethlehem.
Last month, Hadassah dedicated a
For her, the surgeons' nationalities
state-of-the-art
center for emergency
don't matter. "It makes no difference
medicine. The staff drew on its experi-
to me if they are Israeli or Palestinian.
ence to create what is considered one
I'm just thankful to them for all their
of the world's most advanced centers
help," she said, her head covered in a
for treating victims of terror attacks.
beige headscarf.
On another side of the hospital, in
Dr. Marzouqa, also a Palestinian
the
pediatric intensive care unit,
from Bethlehem, and Dr. Eli
stuffed
animals dangle from the ceil-
Milgalter, an Israeli from Jerusalem,
ing and Mariam Salemeh sits next to
have operated on 110 Palestinian chil-
her son, a few beds away from an
dren from the West Bank and Gaza
Orthodox Jewish couple hovering over
Strip who need heart surgery. Their
the bed of their child.
work is funded by a Peres Center for
Dr. Abdel Razzaq Abu Mayaleh is
Peace program that is supported by
one
of the recent additions to the
Italian donors.
pediatric
ICU. He has taken a one-
During surgery, the pair work
year leave of absence from his position
together in studied concentration and
as head of pediatrics at a Hebron hos-
partnership. Outside the operating
pital to train with Dr. Ido Yatziv, head
room, they joke and tease each other
of Hadassah's pediatric ICU.
like old friends.
When he began working at
The hospital recently was nominat-
Hadassah,
Dr. Abu Mayaleh some-
ed for the Nobel Peace Prize, in part
times
had
to
switch taxis several times
because of the cooperation and coexis-
and climb hills outside Hebron
tence demonstrated by a staff that is
because of security closures imposed
both Jewish and Arab. "Once you
DINA KRAFT
T
Mohammed Salemeh of Bethlehem lies in the children's intensive care unit of
Hadassah Hospital as heart surgeons Dr. Bisher Marzouqa and Dr. Eli Milgalter
check on him.
on the West Bank. He persevered
because he was determined to learn
how to set up a pediatric ICU in his
hometown.
Hebron is one of the main flashpoints
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. About
500 Jewish settlers live in the middle of
the town in uneasy proximity to their
Palestinian neighbors. It is the only
West Bank city with both Israeli- and
Palestinian-controlled zones.
Mohtaseb Hospital, where Dr. Abu
Mayaleh works in Hebron, often is
flooded with pediatric patients; but he
felt he lacked the knowledge to deal
with the most critical cases. He plans
to take what he learns at Hadassah to
the pediatric hospital the Red Crescent
Society is building in Hebron.
Hadassah has shown Dr. Abu
Mayalah an entirely different side of
Israelis from the one he knew from
interactions with soldiers and settlers
in Hebron, he said. 'All of us really
feel that we are like brothers, like one
family, in saving the children without
feeling any difference between any
race or religion," he said.
Dr. Marzouqa said Palestinian
patients and their families often
approach him to say they have been
taken aback by the kindness and pro-
fessionalism of Hadassah's Israeli med-
ical staff. When they return home,
those families bear the message that
there is hope for cooperation between
the two sides, doctors say.
Late one afternoon in the pediatric
ICU, Dr. Milgalter is again by
Mohammed Salemeh's bedside, telling
a nurse to increase Mohammed's mor-
phine intake. As the boy's eyelids begin
to flutter, Dr. Milgalter tells him in
basic Arabic, "Everything will be fine."
Dr. Milgalter studied, trained and
has spent his entire 25-year career at
Hadassah. Before the intifada broke
out in September 2000, he had begun
consulting on some cases with Dr.
Marzouqa, who then worked at
Mukassa Hospital in eastern Jerusalem.
In 2003, Dr. Marzouqa started
working as a member of Hadassah's
general surgical team while also per-
forming three or four pediatric cardiac
surgeries a week with Dr. Milgalter.
Instead of despairing at the political
situation, the two doctors laugh about
the absurdity of it all.
"Here, we are about everything con-
nected to doctors, humanity and,
most importantly, patient care," Dr.
Marzouqa said. "In this way, every-
thing else falls into place.
"If politics came into the picture,
everything would be ruined. We are
apolitical; and because of this the hos-
pital is an island of sanity." El
JN
4/21
2005
31