Medical experts from Indonesia are graduating from a course
at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center on coping with natural and man-made
catastrophes.
They are among a group of 27 physicians and nurses from 17 countries taking part in a simulated mass casualty event (MCE).
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country and has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
Rambam management said the simulation is part of the eighth course of
its kind, being held for two weeks in total. It is jointly sponsored by
Rambam Hospital, the Foreign Ministry and the Health Ministry.
Rambam’s staffers are experts in trauma, emergency and mass casualty
situations due to being the main hospital in the North. For years, the
hospital has received soldiers injured on the northern border and
beyond, as well as civilians caught in home-front wars and terrorist
attacks.
“In the course, we learn how to build a system for operating in
emergency, trauma and MCE. We did not come to seek medical information,
but guidance on how to get organized in case of these situations,” said
neurology professor Andi Asadul Islam, from Hassan Udim University in
Makassar, Indonesia. “Rambam’s system for trauma is the best there is,
and we can learn a lot from it.”
The group will receive their diplomas at the ceremony at Rambam.
“We
don’t have a good system,” Islam continued. Indonesia’s broad geography
presents specific challenges in supplying medical care, he explained.
With some 250 million citizens scattered among five large islands and
thousands of smaller ones, Indonesia spans an area, from west to east,
equal to the length of the US.
Rambam also houses the only trauma system in the North, serving nine
general hospitals who cannot take care of severe-trauma patients. The
hospital’s Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency and Mass Casualty
Situations leads instruction in this field nationwide and regularly
holds international seminars for doctors and nurses from around the
world. The center also sends representatives to different countries to
teach courses and holds workshops for NATO personnel.
“I
had heard about the Rambam course from colleagues who had taken it, and
they said it was great,” said Asti Puspita Rini, who manages the 118
Emergency Ambulance Service Foundation in Jakarta, the capital. “It has
been an excellent course… We won’t be able to implement each and every
thing we learned but will certainly adopt parts of the program.”
The course involves theoretical lectures and enables participants to
receive a wide view of the activities of the various emergency medicine
units. They also visit IDF simulation centers and Magen David Adom
headquarters.
The foreign participants are also taken to national and tourist sites, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.
“As a Muslim, it was especially interesting for me to see the Muslim
Quarter in Jerusalem,” said Islam. “Some of my friends and family were
afraid and didn’t want me to come here because of what they see on TV,”
said Rini, “but it’s totally different than what the media show.”
They were also introduced to humous.
“Everything
is well-organized and perfect,” said Dr. Edi Prasetyo, medical adviser
on home care in Jakarta. “We get to see the big picture – how the whole
nationwide system works.”
Source: www.jpost.com