Israeli Field Hospital For Kosovo Refugees In Macedonia

Abstract

Many Israelis watching the news on TV and observing a nation being sent from their home, with only their clothes, to live in a camp could not see similarities between Europe 55 years ago. It is of course not the same situation, but can we sit and watch? Can we be indifferent to the suffering? The public opinion in Israel was that we have to participate in the humanitarian efforts namely to send our field hospital to the refugee camp. The field hospital is a military unit and can be operational within a very short period of time. Three hours after take off from Tel Aviv we landed in Skopie and 8 hours later we opened our gates and became the referral center for all the other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) that where in the process of building their facilities. A field hospital in a refuge camp is a place where the physician does not ask the patient for his address: They are all in the neighborhood, in tent A5 or B6 (with 2 other families). Neither are patients sent home, as there is no home, and you are sure that the one with back pain will spend the cold night on the ground. Newborn babies have no place to stay – it is very cold in the tent and there is no way to combat the low temperature. In contrast to what we have seen in the past, in Africa or in third world locations – here, our patients were under good and modern medical treatment, and as they had to leave in a hurry, they did not take their daily maintenance drugs like insulin or antihypertensive drugs etc. with them. The Israeli military field hospital does not carry large amounts of those drugs and the only way to get the drugs was to go to the nearest pharmacy and buy it (that’s what we did). Another problem was the need for a good delivery room and the need for a well trained gynecologist, as almost once a day (night) we had a normal vaginal delivery. This was a problem that we expected. We had therefore trays for Cesarean section and DC Volume 6, Number 1: 185-202. Israeli Field Hospital For Kosovo Refugees In Macedonia 5 of 5 Author Information Yoel Donchin, M.D. Clinical Professor of Anaesthesia, Medical Director Critical Care Transport (S.R.I.), Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Centers