Israeli hospital directors have been expressing their frustration to Israeli media outlets this week that Israelis “who choose to play Russian roulette with their lives by not vaccinating are stealing the resources of those who vaccinated.”
An example of the issues arising in the wake of those who choose not to vaccinate is the death of a 53-year-old Israeli man last week, who died due to a lack of ECMO machines. The man, who was not a COVID patient, suffered a heart attack and required an ECMO machine to save his life but no machines were available.
Another incident that occurred last week highlighted this moral dilemma as precious medical resources were used to carry out a complex transfer of a young unvaccinated ECMO patient from northern Israel to Jerusalem.
A 40-year-old resident of Naharyia who had no preexisting conditions contracted COVID and was hospitalized in Galilee Medical Center. Unfortunately, his condition continued to deteriorate and he required an ECMO machine that the hospital could not provide for him.
The hospital staff turned to Hadassah Medical Center at Ein Kerem in Jerusalem who agreed to help. Hadassah medical staff traveled to Nahariya in northern Israel to attach the patient to an ECMO machine and carry out the complex transfer to Jerusalem.
“The operation required a number of skilled staff members due to the long distance and the fact that the patient was unstable,” explained Meirav Goldstein-Luria, head of the ECMO and heart-lung machine team at Hadassah.
The transfer was carried out successfully and the patient is now being treated in the ICU COVID unit at Hadassah.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
10 Responses
Will you ask the same question about people who drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol and then need medical help? How about smokers? People who eat more sugar than recommended by the government?
Don’t politicize the medical field!
Any anti vaxxer has lower right of way to ECMO machine and all vaccinated patients however mild their symptoms, have קדימה to ECMO machines. Plain & simple & moral.
Read Rabbi Dr Akiva Tatz’s “Dangerous Diseases, Dangerous Therapies” for a review of the sugya of triage and other medical halachic issues.
Correction: name of the Sefer is “Dangerous Disease and Dangerous Therapy in Jewish Medical Ethics”
Let’s deny all treatments to Non-Vaccinated patients. It’s their fault, they didn’t take the 3 shots.
Let’s deny all treatments to Smokers. It’s their fault, they smoked.
Let’s deny all treatments to overweight patients. It’s their fault, they over-ate.
Let’s deny all treatments to all pregnant patients. It’s their fault, they could have abstained.
Let’s deny all treatments to all patients who did not do what we told them to, when we told them to.
I find it tragically amusing that Israel has a “moral dilemma” regarding treating people who refuse to get vaccinated at the possible expense of others who are vaccinated, but they have no moral issue with not allowing statistically sound cures for the virus (like Ivermectin, which stopped the virus cold in India this month in spite of extremely low vaccination rates there, or plasma treatment, which works exceedingly well, or other treatments) to be offered in early treatment of patients there, thus raising the death rates to unbelievably high levels lately, as has been reported on YWN and elsewhere.
Reshaim Gemurim.
Wow this is some juicy propaganda the truth is the only people being hospitalized are the vaccinated the unvaccinated are not going anywhere a near the hospital
Moral dilemma is not the correct term in this situation. It is two opposing viewpoints. However another moral dilemma exists: why are the doctors not fishing out ivermectin and other remedies that can be taken before the patient’s condition deteriorates so far.
This is BigPharma propaganda attempting to create illegitimate guilt. It is shameful. It is being widely confirmed in other news outlets, that since the so-called ‘Delta Variant’ from back in March, almost all new ‘Covid cases’ are actually from virus creation being caused by the vaccination. (The definition of ‘the vaccinated’ has been altered, but nonetheless the cases being admitted are mostly of those who actually received at least one of these experimental shots.)
i think the writer is correct and i think to continue his theory, we should push the non-smoking as it takes important resources from non-smokers, there were 7000 smoking related deaths in israel in 2019 more than all of covid ,we can continue with obesity and drunk drivers or cellphone drivers
stop pushing an agenda and try atleast a little to be objective!