United Hatzalah in Arabic

Last night at the YMCA building on King David Street history was made. A group of Arab medics from East Jerusalem joined the growing ranks of United Hatzalah's medics. Arab and Jew, religious and secular, right and left joined together to welcome the 30 new medics. In addition to the medics, 2 doctors in East Jerusalem have also joined United Hatzalah to help upgrade the level of emergency medical care available to Arab citizens in East Jerusalem.  

Until now, emergency medical care was seriously hampered by the security requirements for police escort of responding ambulances, unmarked and inaccessible alleyways along with simple language barriers.

United Hatzalah developed the concept of community based medics in the religious communities and expanded it countrywide. Expansion to the underserved Arab communities was a logical extension of the concept.

 Long time supporter of United Hatzalah, Mr. Bert Cohen who donated one of the ambucycles to be used by the unit, was on hand to help distribute the equipment. Mr. Cohen expressed his hopes that this camaraderie and unity practiced by United Hatzalah be adopted by other organizations, communities and even nations to help bridge gaps and make positive tangible changes in our society.

United Hatzalah Chairman, Zev Kashash explained "Just as we don't discriminate in whom we treat and we don't discriminate in who does the treating". Murad Alian from Beit Safafa who will be leading the unit commented that his long experience with the medics of United Hatzalah and the Jewish community in general have left him with a warm feeling of universal brotherhood. 

Along with their reflective identification vests, sporting the new Arabic United Hatzalah logo, each medic received a first response bag containing advanced equipment and supplies for treating emergency medical and trauma incidents. All medics also received MIRS communication devices linked to the United Hatzalah control center. The use of United Hatzalah's high-tech communications network and ubiquitous ambucycle medics is clearly going to have a measurable impact in closing the qualitative gap in emergency medical care for these communities. 

2 brand new United Hatzalah ambucycles will be racing through the winding alleys and pathways of East Jerusalem bringing urgently needed medical assistance to all who may be in need.