[PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

It was a VIP visit at the Ichud Hatzalah national headquarters building in the Romeima neighborhood of Yerushalayim on Monday, 19 Tammuz 5772 for British Ambassador to Israel Mathew Gould and his wife were the guests of honor.

The ambassador was given the red carpet tour, entering the state-of-the-art emergency dispatch center, the equipment center and simply given a full picture of the organization, how it runs and the major role it plays in pre-hospital emergency care in Israel today.

The ambassador understood the system that is the heart of Ichud Hatzalah (IH), dispatching units for first-response to treat and stabilize patients as they await the arrival of an ambulance for transport to a hospital. Ambassador Gould credits IH with significantly reducing EMS response time in Israel because of the innovative system, which today has become an integral component of the nation’s EMS response apparatus.

The organization’s president Eli Beer was on hand to greet the ambassador and his wife, explaining that government officials are always seeking to improve and expand emergency preparedness but at the end of the day, it’s the volunteers in the street, those who are in contact with the public who stand at the heart of the system.

Ambassador Gould was genuinely impressed and promised that he will do what he can to offer assistance to IH and its 1,700 member nationwide volunteer force. He was shown some of the organizations array of equipment to meet any challenge, and feels IH is a model of community service and emergency preparedness, a “model for others to imitate towards cutting down emergency response time in an urgent situation where those critical minutes count.”

“There can be no doubt that emergency organizations around the world can learn a great deal from you” Ambassador Gould told Mr. Beer.

YWN PHOTO LINK: Click HERE for photos.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)