CHICAGO (WBBM) – An Israeli surgeon, involved in his country’s widely-acclaimed rescue effort after the killer earthquake in Haiti, is touring the United States, sharing his expertise.
Dr. Ofer Merin of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital headed the surgical team that left for Haiti shortly after the quake hit. On a recent stop in Chicago, he told WBBM the team was able to get up and running more quickly because a small advance team with satellite phones was able to tell them what to expect once they arrived. “It took less than six hours from the minute that our equipment arrived there that we started to treat the first patients.”
The toughest part, says Dr. Merin, were the heart-wrenching decisions of which patients to treat from among tens of thousands who urgently needed medical care.
Dr. Merin says the Israeli team treated over 1100 patients in 10 days, more than 100 a day, and delivered 16 babies. But, the ones he remembers most are the ones who haunt him – those they had to turn away because they just didn’t have the resources to help everyone.
Dr. Merin shared his insights in Chicago last week with the American Medical Association and the Chicago Fire Department.
Dr. Merin writes about his team’s experiences and challenges in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- Read it HERE
Regine Schlesinger reporting
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
