EMERGENCY ROOM

While we wouldn’t recommend spending a night in the emergency room of any hospital and certainly not on Friday night, our recent experience of doing so in Sha’are Zedek Hospital, certainly was an opportunity to study a microcosm of Israeli society.

THE CARDIAC AMBULANCE

Before you get anxious, all is now well, but just as we were about to make Kiddush last Friday night, Norman suddenly began suffering severe chest pains.  We called the Natali  ambulance service to which we subscribe and within less than the fifteen minutes, the special cardiac ambulance plus two doctors and the driver who was also a para-medic ,were unloading a lot of complicated equipment into our flat. The senior doctor, the silent type, was Russian, he appeared to be supervising and only spoke (or grunted) when the junior doctor, an Israeli, asked him to confirm an opinion.  The driver who was Arab was in charge of operating the equipment, he didn’t say much but kept giving me reassuring smiles while the junior doctor examined Norman.  The verdict was that there did not seem to be anything seriously wrong but that Norman needed to undergo further tests that could only be done in the hospital and so they insisted on taking us there.  Unbeknown to us, a heavy downpour of rain had started just before we left the house and Norman, lying on a stretcher, was soaked while the ambulance crew were getting the door open and loading him inside.  Off we went at great speed, siren blaring, dinner untouched and our Shabbat visitor unfed.  As we drove, me sitting next to the driver, I discovered that he spoke excellent English and was quite a psychologist when it came to reassuring anxious wives, he told me he had been doing the job for 20 years, loved it and the opportunities it gave him to help and interact with people.

OVERCROWDING

The Emergency room was packed, all the cubicles full so we had to join a number of other patients who were sitting or lying in the corridors, Norman was allotted the only bed that remained vacant.  I leant against it as there were no chairs to be seen when an Arab man, sitting by a bed in which someone who I presumed to be his father was lying, hooked up to an infusion, rushed to give me his chair and wished Norman well, brushing  aside my thanks.

Eventually a silent young woman (she looked Russian) appeared with an E.K.G machine and hooked Norman up to it, she apparently spoke neither Hebrew nor English but obviously knew what she was doing in the very complicated procedure of attaching Norman to the machine’s many wires.  Soon after that our assigned doctor appeared, his tag proclaimed him to be Dr. Ahmed, again an Arab, who spoke excellent English and who was kindly and helpful.  It appeared that he was not entirely happy with the results of the blood test that had been taken previously and so we had to remain for another 4 hours to have a further one done.  Not good news at 11 p.m. at night.  Our daughter and son-in-law came to the rescue, went round to our house, walked the dogs, gave them their supper and then came to join us, bearing a picnic supper as we had not eaten since lunchtime.

NEW ARRIVALS

During the time we were waiting there were many comings and goings, three American yeshiva students came in, one with a bandaged arm and blood all over his white shirt, he was very agitated and noisy and we suspected he was high on drugs or alcohol, his companions who were trying to calm him were obviously very fed-up with him.  A small child who had fallen and twisted his foot was followed by a Hassidic couple who looked like something out of a cartoon.  The man was exceptionally short and thin and wearing the biggest, tallest fur Shtreimel we have ever seen. His wife, swathed from head to toe in black, also seemed far too big for him.  Then came a young woman complaining of stomach pains and furious because she wasn’t attended to immediately.  As the night progressed, there were more cases that were not at all amusing,  mainly old people who were battered and bruised from having fallen down or with breathing problems, the Arabs among them were usually accompanied by large numbers of family members of all ages.  Some people suffered quietly while others yelled and shouted, demanding immediate attention.  Through all this the nursing staff went about their duties calmly and efficiently and treated everyone with patience and courtesy.

HOME AT LAST

Norman was exhausted by now but, thankfully, out of pain and finally the results of the second blood test arrived at 3 a.m. and Dr. Ahmed pronounced them to be satisfactory. Apparently something had shown up in the first test that indicated a muscular problem but, it had eventually been decided that it was nothing to do with Norman’s heart.

We finally arrived home, to an exuberant greeting from the dogs, at 4:30 in the morning and very gratefully went to bed.  It had not been the happiest of experiences but the outcome was good and we certainly experienced a slightly different slice of Israeli life.

Norman & Lola Cohen