Special Interview a Unique Medical Facility

The Rambam Medical Center (RMC) in Haifa, known in Israel as the Rambam Hospital, has been playing a unique role in treating those wounded in Lebanon since the war started there in June, 1982.

The RMC has handled approximately 50 percent of the Israeli casualties in addition to treating hundreds of Lebanese civilians, United Nations troops, and Palestine Liberation Organization and Syrian prisoners of war. The proximity of the hospital to the actual fighting and its advanced facilities and expert staff have enabled the hospital to provide significant contributions in the last 19 months.

Recently, the RMC made international headlines when the United States rejected its offer of medical services to treat wounded American servicement after the marine headquarters in Beirut was blown up in a car bomb attack on October 23, despite the fact that the hospital has one of the world’s most advanced trauma and burn centers and has experts in “crush medicine,” the treatment of people injured in collapsed buildings.

EXTENSIVE ACTIVITY DESCRIBED

The key role of RMC during the war in Lebanon and the affect the fighting had on the hospital resources were discussed by Dr. Joseph Brandes, director of the RMC, in a special interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Since June, 1982, the RMC has treated about 2,000 Israeli soldiers and some 500 non-Israelis, including children and civilians from Lebanon, Lebanese soldiers of the Christian militias and UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) troops,” Brandes said. “In addition, we treated PLO and Syrian prisoners of war.”

He contended that this extensive activity has “eroded our means, because the cost of war medicine is tremendous, due to the intensive injuries suffered in battle.” Brandes noted that about 30 percent of the casualties suffered from “multiple injuries” because of the sophisticated weapons used in the war. “This requires extraordinary medical efforts, including the use of sophisticated, recently developed medical instruments,” he said.

Brandes said that during the war the RMC operated two sophisticated CAT Scanners, multi-level X-ray equipment that provides diagnosis of internal wounds in a matter of minutes. “We were the first hospital in the world that used the CAT Scanner for military medicine,” he said.

The location of the RMC, some 80 miles from Beirut, and the fact that it has the most advanced trauma and burn centers in the world, in addition to a well-trained staff of 260 doctors and 615 nurses, turned the 850-bed hospital into a key medical facility during the Lebanon war. “All these factors provided medical care to our soldiers to an extent and quality that were not available during previous Arab-Israeli wars,” Brandes said.

He pointed out that in addition to burn and crash casualties, many of the wounded suffered limb injuries, especially in their legs, because the war in Lebanon was an “infantry war,” compared to the Yom Kippur War which was a “tank and armor war” which resulted in many burn victims.

According to Brandes, the annual budget of the RMC is $40 million, mostly funded by the Israel government. “It pays the salaries and the daily running of the hospital,” he said. This budget, he added, does not pay for the purchase of new medical equipment nor for the construction and development of new centers.

“For this we have to raise money through friends of the hospital,” Brandes said. He noted that one of the new projects of the hospital is the construction of a rehabilitation center — which will serve both the civilian and military population — with special emphasis on hydro-therapy.

After Tel HaShomer Hospital, near Tel Aviv, the RMC ranks, along with Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, as the second largest in Israel. In addition to functioning as a military hospital, the RMC is the major hospital serving the civilian populations of northern Israel and southern Lebanon, or about one million people.

CITES NEW CHALLENGES FOR THE RMC

Brandes and his deputy, Dr. Zvi Ben Ishai, are in the United States for the launching of a major fund-raising drive by the American Friends of the Rambam Medical Center, which is headquartered in New York. The American Friends held an inaugural dinner last week at the Pierre Hotel. Hundreds of guests paid $250 a plate as the first step in the fund-raising drive. Brandes said that new chapters of the American Friends of the RMC will open in the next few weeks in Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.

“The events of the last one-and-a-half years have created new challenges for the RMC,” Brandes said. “These new challenges cannot be met by us alone and, therefore, we turn to our friends here to help us meet these challenges, a fact which will allow us not only to continue but also to expand our services in the years ahead.”