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April 1, 2005/Adar II 21 5765, Volume 57, No. 31
Israeli, Palestinian doctors save lives at Hadassah
DINA KRAFT
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The surgeons - one Israeli, one Palestinian - examine the maze of tubes taped to 10-year-old Mohammed Salemeh's chest.
The young patient's mother, Mariam, stands behind them, next to the heart monitor. Her eyes grow wide as she watches her son's chest slowly rise and fall. Mohammed is unconscious after some six hours of surgery at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem, but he is in "excellent condition," the doctors assure Mariam.
The doctors operated together on Mohammed, fixing the damaged aortic valve with which he was born.
On a piece of notebook paper, Dr. Bisher Marzouqa sketches out a diagram of the procedure for Mariam, a Palestinian Muslim who has brought her son for treatment from the West Bank city of Bethlehem. For her, the surgeons' nationalities don't matter.
"It makes no difference to me if they are Israeli or Palestinian. I'm just thankful to them for all their help," she said.
Marzouqa, a Palestinian from Bethlehem, and Dr. Eli Milgalter, an Israeli from Jerusalem, have operated on 110 Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who need heart surgery. Their work is funded by a Peres Center for Peace program that is supported by Italian donors.
During surgery, the pair work together in studied concentration and partnership. Outside the operating room, they joke and tease each other like old friends.
Hadassah recently was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in part because of the cooperation and coexistence demonstrated by a staff that is both Jewish and Arab.
Marzouqa has to drive through an Israeli checkpoint every day to reach the hospital. Most days he can pass through within minutes, but there are times when it can take up to two hours.
Hadassah's two hospital campuses have treated more terror victims than any other medical center in the world since the Palestinian intifada began, even when it has meant treating terrorists and their victims in the same room.
Hadassah also has reached out to the Palestinian community by training Palestinian doctors to open their own pediatric oncology ward in a hospital in eastern Jerusalem, training another doctor with an eye toward creating the first pediatric intensive care unit in the West Bank city of Hebron and hosting a support group for Palestinian and Israeli parents whose children have diabetes.
On March 24, Hadassah dedicated a state-of-the-art center for emergency medicine. The staff drew on its experience to create what is considered one of the world's most advanced centers for treating victims of terror attacks.
Marzouqa said Palestinian patients and their families often approach him to say they have been taken aback by the kindness and professionalism of Hadassah's Israeli medical staff. When they return home, those families bear the message that there is hope for cooperation between the two sides, doctors say.
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