Israel’s Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz visited the MDA National Command and Control Centre in Kiryat Ono on Thursday morning. The minister met with MDA Director-General Eli Bin who shared the challenges MDA faces daily, how Covid has compounded them, and the lifesaving organization’s solutions to overcoming them.
The minister viewed a presentation by Chief Information Officer Ido Rosenblat of the state-of-the-art technology MDA developed that guarantees a chain of assistance from the second a call is answered at the dispatch centre until the patient is on his way to the hospital. The minister also received an overview about MDA’s blood services operations and the Human Milk Bank.
“One of our advantages we [in Israel] have in fighting Covid and in all routine emergencies is Magen David Adom,” said MK Nitzan Horowitz. “[They’re] accessible, fast, professional, and advanced.
“A lifesaving organization with the highest standards in the world, MDA team members are saving lives every day, and during Covid it became one of the most important factors in reducing morbidity. “One cannot imagine Israel’s medical system without Magen David Adom.”
MK Horowitz was impressed with MDA’s deployment of portable defibrillators in public spaces throughout the country, shortening the medical response to cardiac arrests. He expressed his deep appreciation to the EMT call takers at the centre after learning from them about their work. He was particularly impressed by the way triage is conducted over the phone and how in many cases treatment instructions are given to the caller while automatically an ambulance is dispatched to the scene.
MK Horowitz also toured a display of MDA’s lifesaving vehicles, among them: an Advanced Life Support Bus, the new blood donation bus, ambulances, Medicycles, all-terrain emergency vehicles, the Wish Ambulance, mobile vaccination caravans, corona sampling units, and more.