For the personnel at Yoseftal Medical Center in Eilat, Israel, treating the wounded and suffering took on new significance following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The hospital’s CEO, Dr. Yaffa Ashur, visited St. Louis recently to discuss her work at United Hebrew Congregation and the Jewish Federation.
She also had a chance to spend some time with her son Ofer, who is a member of the current group of Shinshinim. Ashur, a pathologist, sat down with the Jewish Light to talk about the challenges health care workers in Israel face every day and why Israeli hospitals treat all patients without regard to their faith.
What motivated you to go into medicine?
I thought I’d be a mathematician in the beginning, but at the age of 18 or so, I said, ‘What am I going to do with math? Be a math teacher?’ I didn’t want to do that. I wanted something which is scientific, but has to deal with people, and medicine was the right choice. It’s a very, very interesting profession, and I love my job.
When you speak to groups in the Jewish community here, you get lots of questions. Do any of them surprise you?
Yes, one of them was about treating Arabs. For me, it’s obvious to look after Arabs. If I look at the hospitals, about 30% of the team in the hospital are Arabs.
Prior to Oct. 7, is it fair to say that Arabs and Israelis lived and worked alongside in relative harmony?
Sometimes you could feel some tension in the air, especially if something happened like any terror attack or something. Even after Oct. 7, the Arabs in the hospital worked alongside Jews. There was no difference. We have heads of departments which are Arabs. They were as shocked by what they saw as we were.
Your hospital has also treated terrorists, correct?
It was challenging. They had a lot of wounded terrorists. The army built a special institute to look after them. But not everything could be done there. Like, they wouldn’t have an MRI machine. They wouldn’t have operating theaters. The surgery, the tests, the MRI, the CT, all the other things were done in Israeli hospitals. It was very difficult emotionally to do it, but we did it If somebody needs assistance, you take care of them.
What about average Palestinian citizens?
Arabs, they always come to the Israeli hospitals. That’s nothing new. Some of them have a kind of insurance from the Palestinian Authority, so there is someone who pays for the medical care. And some of them come, and they have no way to pay, and they still get therapy. Many women come to deliver in the Israeli hospitals, and then you can’t send them back, and then she’s in the middle of delivery. Then she gives birth, and then she’s being taken care of, and the baby is taken care of.
