Magen David Adom - Ambulance

Magen David Adom - Red Star of David (ambulance service)

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This is the headline on the Friends of Magen David Adom website, and this is the perspective with which I prefer to view the service.

On April 12, around 1 pm, my sister and I were talking with my Mom in the kitchen.  She was standing with her lichon- walker.  Suddenly Mom had difficulty with words, struggling to articulate. Then whatever words emerged were confused, made no sense.  Then she could not speak at all.  With considerable urging, we got her to sit on a chair.

I called her doctor who advised me to call the ambulance.  By the time the ambulance came, Mom was back to full cognition.

Five emergency medical technicians arrived with chair/stretcher.  Tears were welling up in my eyes, but I tried to stay focused.  The four men and one woman were all very kind.  It didn't matter.  Mom didn't want to see them.  She had had enough of hospitals.  She was emphatic - "Amut im ani elech l'bet hacholim! - I will die if I go to the hospital".   On the side, the paramedic whispered to me  - very risky if she does not go.  Important tests to do.  But I knew Mom was resolute against it, and nothing could be done.  After a case history and a couple rudimentary tests - blood pressure and sugar level - they were ready to go.  She just had to sign that she declined to go to the hospital, which later translated that the ambulance cost would not be covered by insurance.  And the fact that the rudimentary tests checked out OK just bolstered her impression that everything was fine.

"Why did you call the ambulance?  Can't you see that I'm fine?  You should have known that I would recover."  Never mind that Mom had a mini stroke, a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack).  She had a couple of these before.  No big deal.  Nevertheless, her doctor thought it was big deal enough to pay her a visit.  All the tests that could have been handled in one "ishpuz" ....  now that's an interesting word.  The Ushpizin are the seven mystical visitors whom we welcome to our succot throughout the holiday of Succoth.  Ushpizin comes from the Aramaic word, ushpiz, meaning a guest and also a lodging place or an inn. In modern Hebrew, the related word ishpuz means hospitalization.  I figured a visit by an ushpiz or two would be a good thing.

All those tests that could have been done in one ishpuz, the doctor advised me, now need to be done as separate appointments at various clinics.  Actually he didn't state it so succinctly - but it was obvious.  He had me join him in his car, where he scribbled out prescriptions for CT scan, ultrasound of carotid, scan of heart, x-ray of chest, evaluation by neurologist, and a new medication.  The worst part was not the struggle with the Hebrew, or the various "issues" that invariably emerge when dealing with the medical bureaucracy, or the trips to the clinics and pharmacy.  The hardest part was the vehement anger from Mom that I had the audacity to contact her doctor, and that she now had to endure all these unnecessary tests.

Haola!
Gam Zu L'tovah!