Dear friends,
A week ago a baby girl named Reem was born to a poor family living in a remote section of the Gaza Strip. She was cyanotic, and tests showed that the oxygen saturation in her blood was 25% (compared to the normal of 90%+). Doctors in the Gaza pediatric hospital called on Sunday and asked us to help rescue Reem by emergency transfer to Israel.
All that day I tried unsuccessfully to make contact with the family. Finally that night I met the father outside the neonatal ICU. To my surprise--for Reem was quite white--he was quite black! He took me to the family's little cinderblock home, with asbestos sheeting for a roof, where the mother lay under a blanket on a mattress on the floor, still weak from the birth of her first child two days before. She too was dark-skinned (a small percentage of the population in the Gaza Strip are of African origin), and her delightful family and I all laughed together over the anomalous appearance of their daughter.
Doctors at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa agreed to accept Reem the next morning (at a fraction of the normal cost) for what was expected to be a relatively simple shunt surgery. But on echocardiogram they found she suffered from transposition of the great arteries, and proposed a complex switch operation to effect a complete repair. As Rambam is not known as a major pediatric heart center, I was concerned about their readiness for such an attempt, and felt keenly the trust the family had put in us. I called and obtained the consent of the team at the Wolfson Medical Center to accept Reem for surgery instead. I then laid out our concerns before the Rambam cardiologist, and the option for transfer to Wolfson, and asked him to decide what would be in the best interest of Reem. He replied that they had seen good results in this particular surgery at Rambam, and felt right to go ahead. "Okay," I told him, "we'll be praying."
On Wednesday Reem went in for surgery, and when I called at 3:00 p.m. was just on her way back to the ICU. The next day the cardiologist called. "I would like to inform you," he began. I braced myself. He continued: "...that Reem was taken off the ventilator two hours ago and is in good condition!"
We're so thankful as this week ends to bring good news to Reem's family, and for our budding relationship with the doctors at Rambam. Also for newborn Arsula, who has recovered and already returned home after last week's surgery at Tel HaShomer; and Dina, another newborn from our town of Rafah who underwent successful emergency heart surgery at Wolfson yesterday (it's been a busy week!).
Please would you pray with us for newborn Oday and his family: doctors at Wolfson determined after catheterization on Wednesday that he is inoperable, and sent him back to Gaza to await his death. A friend called and said that he'd seen Oday's father weeping while waiting for his infant son at the crossing into Israel. Also Mohammed, a 13-year-old whom we helped with several treatments by catheterization, has suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and is now in critical condition in the ICU of the main Gaza hospital.
With faith in God's mercy,
Jonathan Miles
Coordinator
Light to the Nations
POB 46
Ashkelon 78100
Israel
e-mail: LTTN@netvision.net.il
Non-profit organization 58 025 750 9.
