Magen David Adom has been engaged over the past year in saving lives during routine and emergency situations. On the eve of the new civil year, the organization summarizes the past year and presents its main activities in numbers.

MDA operates with approximately 37,500 volunteers, employees, National Service participants, and Civil Service personnel, including about 15,000 youth volunteers. In addition, approximately 18,000 “Life Guardians” operate within MDA. MDA volunteers contributed over 4.7 million hours of volunteering. The average age of MDA volunteers is 26. The oldest volunteer is a 91-year-old resident of Ness Ziona, and the youngest is a 14-year-old.

Magen David Adom operates 206 stations and response points across the country. Over 2,650 mobile intensive care units (MICUs), ambulances, medicycles, and unique vehicles are active nationwide. These include 312 rapid response vehicles, of which 82 are electric, 77 4×4 vehicles, including 25 intensive care units, 17 ATVs, 24 mass-casualty event vehicles, and 42 trailers equipped for mass-casualty events. Additionally, 15 medical supervisor vehicles, 3 Unimog vehicles, 3 intensive care buses, and 52 armored ambulances, intensive care units, blood donation vehicles, and command vehicles.

There are 576 medicycles, of which 72 are heavy medicycles, and 193 electric bicycles. In the Sea of Galilee, MDA operates an intensive care sea ambulance, and along the Eilat shores, an MDA sea ambulance operates, responding to 77 incidents. MDA’s unique ECMO unit, in collaboration with Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), treated 30 patients, of whom 10 were connected to heart-lung machines as part of resuscitation efforts in the field.

In 2024, MDA emergency vehicles were dispatched 1,444,924 times, meaning that, on average, a team was dispatched every 21.8 seconds. In road accidents across the country, MDA medics and paramedics provided medical care to 67,859 injured individuals. 16,666 pregnant women were transported to hospitals, of whom 1,156 gave birth with the assistance of MDA teams at home or en route to the hospital. During the swimming season, MDA EMTs and paramedics provided medical care to 366 adults and children rescued from the sea, pools, and other water sources after drowning.

Approximately 500,000 men and women completed first aid and CPR courses in 17,000 training sessions across the country in the past year. Of these, 60,000 participated in free first aid courses conducted by MDA in shelters and protected spaces as part of its public service during the Iron Swords war. MDA’s Medical Division certified 243 new paramedics over the past year. 720 youth volunteers were trained to handle mass-casualty events, and 780 teenagers were certified as first aid instructors.

As part of the lessons learned from October 7, 2023, MDA’s Operations Division initiated the “Magen Project” this year, aimed at preparing the civilian front for emergencies. Within this project, over 15,000 civilians, including members of emergency response teams, municipal employees, inspectors, and others, were trained to provide initial medical care. Participants, including 880 doctors and paramedics, were equipped by MDA with medical kits and will be able to provide initial care in situations where communities are cut off due to natural disasters, wars, terrorist infiltrations, and similar events.

Magen David Adom, in cooperation with the Israeli Midwives Association, launched the “Opening Pathways” project, through which professional midwives were equipped with medical kits by MDA and dispatched alongside intensive care units to assist women in labor. In the first stage of the project, 48 midwives from northern Israel joined and have already assisted pregnant women in giving birth. Many more midwives from other parts of the country are expected to join the project in 2025.

This year, 301,655 units of blood were collected by MDA Blood Services teams in 8,591 blood donation drives held at public venues across the country, MDA donation rooms, schools, workplaces, and IDF bases. Women accounted for 37% of blood donors in 2024, while 18% of the hundreds of thousands of donors were first-time donors. Approximately 13,000 of the blood units supplied by MDA Blood Services to the IDF and hospitals were whole blood units. MDA Blood Services operates 36 blood donation vehicles, 14 trailer units, and two blood donation buses, each capable of handling five donors simultaneously. All blood donations were tested in MDA’s state-of-the-art laboratories in the secure protected MDA facility in Ramla, the first of its kind in the world, and were supplied to all hospitals and the IDF.

MDA’s National Milk Bank provided approximately 3,580 liters of milk in the past year for premature infants in neonatal units and dozens of babies who were orphaned, whose mothers were kidnapped or injured, or whose mothers were drafted into the IDF. This represents a 20% increase compared to 2023. In the past year, 460 new milk donors joined the bank, all meeting the strictest medical standards to provide the safest milk for preemies.

Magen David Adom’s logistics division ensured the medical and operational needs of the organization in the field throughout the year. In 2024, 3,736 rapid response kits were prepared by the division’s employees and volunteers and distributed to MDA medics, paramedics, and doctors, enabling them to save lives even outside working hours. Through MDA’s Wish Ambulance program, 110 wishes were granted. Additionally, MDA, in partnership with Hatzolah Air, operates five helicopters equipped with advanced intensive care equipment, which treated and airlifted 253 patients and injured individuals to hospitals nationwide.

MDA operates a unique national command truck equipped with cutting-edge technology, alongside three regional command and communication vehicles. This year, MDA teams participated in 378 drills. The MDA 101 call center received 3,644,612 calls in the past year, averaging one call every 8.6 seconds, with an average response time of just three seconds. In 2024, MDA installed 158 defibrillators in public spaces across 46 communities nationwide. Since the project to install public defibrillators began, MDA has placed 1,827 lifesaving devices in 506 different communities. Additionally, over 600 devices have been installed in synagogues in Jerusalem and other cities.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)