IT IS MY MISFORTUNE to have spent more than a week in Tel HaShomer/(Haim) Sheva hospital near Tel Aviv .
- I am closer to Assuta hospital in Ashdod, but my PCP sent me “north” to avoid Hamas’ rockets.
What I write is from my personal experience. First hand. On the scene.
As Jack Webb (Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday) would say: “Just the facts.”
WHILE SOME PEOPLE CAN identify an Arab by their accent, I cannot. But then, I really don’t try . . . or care.
As a patient in Tel HaShomer, all I know is that I received — at a minimum — professional care. Most of the hospital’s medical staff also were kind and almost all were pleasant.
One or two had outstanding personalities.
For the most part, the caregiver’s religion was irrelevant.
Racist? No, humor It also generally was not a topic of discussion. There was one exception: an exchange between a Jewish patient and a Muslim nurse.
- Patient: “I fasted all day.
Nurse: “I fasted all month! (Ramadan)
The exchange brought laughter from the medic and patient as well as other patients (this scrivener) in the room. Everyone knew Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, and saw the nurse was a 20s-something male compared to the patient’s 70-plus years. No one was offended.
There are some “obvious” Muslims, identified by their apparel. I shared a ride with a Druze couple; there was no favoritism by the Muslim driver. Druze claim not to be Muslims; I’ll accept that.
The medical staff is roughly 70 percent Muslim. That includes doctors, nurses, and aides.
Muslims work for Jews; Jews work for Muslims; all work for the patients.
Movin’ on up Ethiopians, the “new kids on the block,” make up the majority of the cleaning crews, although there are “Russians” also on cleaning duty. Many Ethiopians came to Israel with no education — they are getting it now and, like others before them, are moving up the career ladder.
I had blood drawn by Jews and by Muslims. A Russian ex-pat was great, but two other aides — Jews, Muslims? — were even better: no pain.
Tel HaShomer is a teaching hospital affiliated with the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tel Aviv, so it is not unusual to see a “professor/doctor” making rounds with one or more students. Unless you read the ID badges, there is no way to know which doctor-to-be is Jewish, Muslim, or “other.”
Silence is golden – at 1 a.m. True, if you listen carefully you may hear Arabic spoken in the halls — by staff and by patients. By and large, I found the nurses on the 11-to-7 shift uncommonly loud. Other shifts were much better, but then they generally did not need to worry about sleeping patients.
- I worked in a U.S. military hospital and briefly at a small private hospital, so I KNOW there is no excuse for loud talking when patients are trying to sleep.
Great way to lose weight. I won’t comment on the food except to state that my “no salt, no sugar” diet generally was inedible. That could just be me. The men and women that brought the food were as professional and kind as the medical staff; that the veggies were cooked to mush was not their fault.
- I got a pass for Friday night-to-Saturday night and over that 25 hour period I managed to eat everything in sight; no question: it was the hospital food that was the problem.
The whole concept of apartheid or Muslims as second class citizens is, at least at Tel HaShomer, complete bovine excrement.
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