Doctors at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan, Israel, are waging a round-the-clock battle to save a 10-year-old Syrian girl, who was severely injured in an airstrike on a house in Daraá Southwest Syria by pro-Assad government forces two weeks ago.
The girl, known as “Malik,” arrived at Sheba in a twist-of-fate episode. An American family celebrating their daughter’s bat mitzvah at a private event on the Golan Heights, had invited Professor Yitshak Kreiss, the director general of Sheba Medical Center to the simcha. He was on his way to the Golan Heights to partake in the bat mitzvah celebration when he received an urgent phone call from the IDF informing him about a severely wounded 10-year-old Syrian girl, who was the victim of an aerial bombing raid on a building in Daraá. The girl’s sister was killed in the raid, while her brother was also injured and taken to another medical facility somewhere in Syria.
The injured, unconscious girl and her mother were driven to the border with Israel, where an IDF medical team quickly performed an operation to stabilize her. But the girl’s multiple injuries were life threatening and it was determined that she needed to be immediately airlifted to Sheba Medical Center, where she could receive life-saving treatment.
Kreiss, who prior to assuming his position at Sheba nearly two years ago was the IDF’s surgeon general and was directly responsible for setting up the original “Good Neighbor” field hospital along the Syrian border, quietly left the Bat Mitzvah celebration for a nearby airfield on the Golan Heights where a helicopter from the IDF’s elite 669 Combat Search & Rescue Unit was summoned to fly the Syrian girl and her mother to Sheba Medical Center. Kreiss checked the girl’s condition in an IDF ambulance before she was placed on the helicopter and alerted Sheba’s Emergency Room staff in the Safra Children’s Hospital to her arrival.
After a battery of tests and intensive treatments, the young girl was moved to the intensive care unit in the Safra Children’s Hospital, where she is slowly recovering. The prognosis is “good,” according to Dr. Itai Pessach, Sheba’s senior pediatric critical care physician, who is tending to Malik’s injuries.
“She is suffering from multiple injuries, including severe head and chest trauma, burns, cuts and bruises. Though she remains in critical condition, we believe that she will live but face a long road to recovery,” Dr. Pessach revealed. “A child is a child no matter where they are from. We cannot stand by when we see a nation under dire conditions and patients not getting the care they need. This is what the Israel and the Jewish People are about—lending a hand to the people in need.”
Malik’s mother, who came with only the clothes on her back to Sheba with her daughter, has been overwhelmed by what he has seen and heard in her first experience with Israeli Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses.
“This has been an emotional journey for me, Malik and my family. I am very happy, and pleased with the way we have been treated by everyone in the hospital, and with God’s help, I will be able to bring Malik back to our family in Daraá, where my husband is waiting for us with our son,” she said.
Kreiss added, “This is not our first experience in dealing with casualties of the Syrian civil war and the way things are developing on the border; I’m afraid it won’t be the last. It was an ironic twist of fate that I happened to be on the Golan Heights celebrating the happiness of a Bat Mitzvah girl and we hope to celebrate the rebirth of Malik’s young life after our dedicated staff helps her recover. We are proud to be a hospital without borders and an oasis of peace in a turbulent region of the world.”
By Steve Walz
