Israeli medical teams treat Israeli and Arab patients equally. Most recently, they saved the life of a Palestinian baby.

Israeli medical teams were successful in saving the life of a six-month-old Palestinian baby who was brought to a checkpoint in a state of lifelessness.

The dramatic event occurred on Saturday morning when the mother, from the Palestinian village of Tubas, came to the Allenby border crossing with her baby, who had already begun to turn blue. Originally on their way to Jordan to receive medical treatment, they realized they could not make it.

Attendants immediately initiated an emergency procedure. Magen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross) medics and an IDF doctor were alerted to the scene.

The doctor decided that an aerial evacuation was required, and an Israeli Air Force helicopter was called in to evacuate the baby. In the meantime, Israeli medical teams worked to stabilize him.

The infant and his mother were flown to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He is hospitalized in critical yet stable condition, sedated and connected to a respirator.

The boy’s mother told Ynet that her child suffers from heart problems and that a local doctor had told her she must “take him to Jordan for urgent medical care.” However, en route to Amman, at around 11 a.m. on Saturday, the child collapsed.

Quick and professional treatment administered by Israeli medical teams saved his life.

Long Track Record of Treating Palestinian Patients

This is by no means a singular event. Israeli hospitals and medical teams have a long track record of treating Palestinian patients, in many cases free of charge.

IDF medical teams and Israeli civilian emergency units from communities in Judea and Samaria regularly treat local Arabs, often after car accidents, for a broad array of ailments and injuries. The Arab practice of walking to an IDF checkpoint or to the front gate of an Israeli community for medical treatment is common.

On April 1, for example, an IDF medical team treated 20 wounded Palestinian Arabs after a serious car crash. Last December, a car accident in the region involved three seriously injured Palestinian Arab women who were treated by an IDF medical team at the scene. They required more extensive care and were transferred to Hadassah.

Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa provides medical care to hundreds of patients from Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (PA)-administered territories year round; 650 children and teenagers were treated there throughout 2013.

During Operation Protective Edge, as terrorists in Gaza were firing on Israeli citizens, patients at Rambam included three adults and eight children from Gaza as well as three adults and two children from the PA, in addition to seven patients from the PA in outpatient clinics.

A report published by Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Unit (COGAT) shows that 219,464 Palestinian patients received medical treatment in Israeli hospitals during 2012, including 21,270 children.

By: United with Israel Staff