Knesset Ministers Respond to SMC's Call to Fund Trauma Centers

#sderot media center, #Israeli knesset members, #trauma centers, #knesset ministers,




By; Anav Silverman
Sderot Media Center
www.SderotMedia.com

SMC's Noam Bedein corresponds with Knesset ministers to alleviate financial crisis for Sderot trauma facilities

In light of the closing of the Sderot trauma facilities, SMC has called on Israeli Knesset ministries to step up funding or find a financial solution that will enable trauma services to continue operating in Sderot.

Sderot Media Center director, Noam Bedein, notified members of Knesset, who he had been in touch with previously in regard to the Israeli Tax Authority's treatment of Sderot residents' whose homes and properties were damaged in rocket attacks. Read more.

Members of Knesset, Dr. Marina Solodkin, Deputy Health Minister, Minister of Social Welfare Services, Yitzchak Hertzog, MK Ori Orbach, and MK Uri Ariel all responded to Sderot Media Center's notification. The four Knesset members contacted Deputy Health Minister, Rabbi Yakov Litzman to personally ask him what actions the Ministry of Health was taking to prevent the closures of the trauma facilities.

Minister of Social Welfare, Yitzchak Hertzog personally sent a letter to Mr. Bedein, highlighting the actions and meetings that are to stop the collapse of the Sderot treatment therapy centers.

The following is an excerpt from the Minister Hertzog's letter (May 21, 2009):

"There is no doubt that the trauma centers proved their effectiveness during Operation cast Lead. Therefore the Government of Israel must take it up on herself to continue to fund these centers. The Ministry of Social Welfare Services, the office of the Prime Minister, and the Health Ministry are taking every possible measures to maintain the operations of the centers.


In addition, the director of the Social Welfare Office, Mr. Nahum Itzkovitch has decided to initiate an immediate meeting, which representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister and the director of the Healthy Ministry will be part of, in order to find a solution to this critical problem."

The Sderot Trauma Center also known as Merkaz Hosen had its budget cut down by 50% when the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews notified the facility that it could no longer provide funding to the center. The other half of the center's funding-- provided by the Israeli government-is not nearly enough to keep the center open.

The Shock Treatment Center, which also runs under the Sderot Trauma Center is also on the verge of closing because of budget cuts. The Shock Treatment Center, which provides immediate treatment to Sderot victims of rocket terror, is vital to the Sderot community.

Sderot Media Center is awaiting an invitation to the meeting.

Sderot residents left to battle rockets and PTSD alone

#Sderot, #Mental health center, #PTSD, #Qassam rockets, #Trauma center, #shock center, #Gaza, #Hamas, #Sderot Media Center

By; Anav Silverman
Sderot Media Center
http://www.sderotmedia.com/

Sderot trauma facilities in danger of closing due to budget cuts.

Imagine that you are 18-years-old. You have just completed high school and in a few months you will enter the army. In the meantime, you spend your time going out with friends and working to save some money-- like any other typical teenager in Israel.

One afternoon, you come home exhausted from work and collapse into bed for a nap. Suddenly, in the middle of your nap you find yourself waking up to the sound of your window exploding above your bed. Shards of glass lie everywhere. It takes you a moment to realize that a rocket has slammed a few feet away from your home.
Welcome to a moment in the life of Ilan Dahan, a Sderot 18-year-old who slept through the Color Red siren-- only to wake up to a Gaza rocket exploding in his backyard last Tuesday evening, May 19.
“It’s a miracle that all I got was this scratch,” Ilan says, dazedly pointing to a red mark on his back, where a piece of glass cut through.
Ilan’s family stands around in shock. His mother Shula looks at her son tearfully. “I never expected this to happen to us during the ceasefire,” she says.

The back of the Dahan’s home is covered in debris and glass, while rocket shrapnel marks the walls and ceiling of the home. An evening breeze blows through the windowless windows. Ilan’s father, Avi, stands by his son. “I was terrified that something had happened to him,” Avi says in a quiet voice.
Now imagine that after such a rocket attack, the kind of therapy needed to get shock victims back on track, is no longer available. Due to significant budget cuts, trauma therapy facilities in Sderot, which have played a valuable role in rehabilitating residents of the rocket-torn community, are now in danger of closing down.

Those who will be affected most by this recent development are Sderot‘s children, as the Sderot Trauma Center, which caters mostly to Sderot children and teenagers - ages 17 and below - is on its way out.
Fifty percent of the center’s funding comes from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, or Keren LeYedidut. The organization can no longer provide the funds to keep the center going.



The trauma center treats 620 trauma patients, of whom 80% are children, says Daliah Yosef, the trauma center’s director.



“I’ve already handed out dismissal letters to the staff at the center,” Yosef told Sderot Media Center last Thursday, May 21 two days after the rocket attack.
The other 50% of the trauma center‘s funding is provided by the Israeli Government Ministries of Health, Revenue, and Seniors - not nearly enough to keep the center open.
“The harshest part of this reality is that hundreds of Sderot children will be left with no place to go for treatment,” says Yosef.

Ilan is fortunate that he is 18 and can therefore receive treatment at the Sderot Mental Health Center, which ministers to adult victims from ages 18 and up. However, Sderot's Mental Health Center’s director, Dr. Adrianna Katz, says that although her center is in no danger of closing, she does not have enough staff to deal with over 6,000 trauma victim files --which continue to grow every day. In fact, since the recent rocket attack on Sderot, over 60 people from the residential neighborhood where the rocket landed, have sought treatment at the Sderot Mental Health Center.

In addition to Yosef’s Trauma Center, the Sderot Shock Treatment Center which operates under the trauma center, is also in danger of shutting down.
Photo: Anav SilvermanThe Shock Treatment Center opened three years ago, alongside the trauma center, to provide immediate treatment to shock victims after rocket attacks. Before then, Sderot residents had to be transported 20 minutes away to Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital or to Be’er Sheva’s Soroka Hospital.

“When the Shock Treatment Center opened in Sderot, it made treatment for Sderot residents much more efficient and easier, as they received help on the spot” said Dr. Katz, who also heads the shock center. “Sderot residents feel more at home being treated at the center.”
“Going back to the original way--transporting Sderot trauma victims by ambulance to hospitals outside the area is absolutely ridiculous,” Dr. Katz told Sderot Media Center. “The cost of transporting patients is more expensive and many times there are not enough ambulances to transport all victims, especially during episodes when there are a series of rocket attacks on the city.”

Indeed in the recent rocket attack, the Sderot Shock Treatment Center treated all eight victims of shock including a woman injured by rocket shrapnel.
Sderot’s trauma facilities remain a vital part of the Sderot community, which for eight years has been under Gaza rocket attack. As the city’s residents continue to live under the range of Qassam fire, it is the therapy and care that Dr. Katz and Dalia Yosef provide which helps residents return to a semblance of normal life.
In the meantime, Ilan Dahan continues to hope that someday he can wake up to a rocket-free sky.

The Significance of Memory in Israel: Sderot Remembers its Qassam Victims

#Sderot Qassam victims, #Israel rememberance day, # #Collective Memory, #Jewish History, #Gaza, #Iran,


By; Noam Bedein
Director
Sderot media Center
http://www.sderotmedia.com/

"Today we are in the midst of the third cease fire in the last two years. During each of these periods, hundreds of rockets have been fired towards Israel. Iran has become part of the equation in the Gaza-Sderot conflict and is very close to home - right in Sderot’s back yard. When we do not remember, our consciousness is the recipient of the routine reality, a routine that provides legitimization for terror, and raises the question of our basic right to live as Jews and Israelis freely in our country."

The 10 Sderot victims of the Qassam rocket attacks have become insignificant statistics when comparing the numbers of those killed in Gaza. Oshry Oz, Shirel Friedman, Afik Ochaion-Zehavi, Yosifov Michael, Kas’houn Yuval, Binsah Dorit-Gento, Ella Abukasis, Yaakov Yaakobov, Fa’ina Slozker, and Roni Yechiye, were all killed in the past eight years by indiscriminate rockets launched from Gaza. Here in Sderot, these people are not forgotten.



The eve of Israel’s Memorial Day 2009, as opposed to previous years, is deeply significant to the unique character of this nation’s collective memory. In a remembrance ceremony that took place in Sderot in marking those who fell in the various battles in Israel and those killed in terrorist acts including Qassam attacks, one can understand the importance of memorials. Sderot resident, Chanan Yaakobov, a mature 15 year old, spoke in the ceremony of his father who was killed by a Qassam rocket that exploded in a chicken factory just one week before the first cease fire in November 2006.



“I barely remember you...” Chanan says of his father to the audience. “Days have gone by and I am growing up without a father, I barely remember what you look like, and it is only the photographs that remind me of my childhood with my father, and that is why we have a memorial day in order to remember, and not to forget...”



The children of Sderot understand the importance of memories and their special significance. In the Memorial Day ceremony that took place in the Alon Science School, the children asked in their naiveté, “Is the siren that will be sounded in the city on Memorial Day the same siren as the red alert?” How can one expect a nine year old child that is born into the reality of rocket fire and doesn’t know any other reality to understand that the siren for Israel‘s Memorial Day is different from the Color Red siren warning of rocket attacks.



There was an exemplary silence during the Memorial Day siren- the children stood at steadfast attention; no voice was heard; there was no chirping or giggling.
Leora Fima, the school principal, related later on that “the children in first grade today understand that the deaths in Sderot and of those soldiers killed in Israel’s wars emphasize the importance of life in our country in general and life in Sderot in particular.”



The critical significance of the holidays in the past month is the basis of the fundamental collective memory in the various periods of Jewish history: Passover, where we remember the Exodus from Egypt, the Exodus from slavery to freedom; Holocaust day, with the memory of millions of Jews that were killed for merely being Jewish; Memorial Day, for the victims of Israel’s battles, who with their heroism enabled us to go on in the state. In their merit we live today in the state of Israel.



The words “freedom,“ “liberty,“ and “national Jewish and Israeli pride” take on a special meaning here in Sderot, where for over eight years rockets have terrorized a civilian population. In a reality that would be regarded unacceptable in any other part of the world, these words hold great meaning for the residents of Sderot, the western Negev and approximately a million citizens that live in the south of Israel.



The last time that the city of Sderot looked like a city that celebrated Independence Day was during the period of Operation Cast Lead that began on the 27th of December and continued until January 18. The entire city-- every alley, street and neighborhood was decorated with Israeli flags. Except for the fact that the streets were empty, parks dormant, and people remained inside in bomb shelters, it felt that the residents of Sderot were celebrating Independence Day early.



Dr. Adrianna Katz, the director of the Mental Health Center in Sderot, diagnosed hundreds of trauma victims during the battle period in Gaza and assigned a “new” syndrome to Sderot victims of PTSD- “optimistic anxiety”. The optimistic anxiety victims were diagnosed as having no anger. Dr. Katz explained that this was the first time in eight years that the residents of Sderot felt as if they were part of the state of Israel. They were beginning to experienced the feeling of potential independence from eight years of rocket shooting.“There was finally a feeling of euphoria - for the first time the residents saw the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Katz. This feeling continued for three weeks - during the entire time of the battle.



Tonight the State of Israel celebrates 61 years since its founding. Four months have passed since the fighting in Gaza where more than 200 rockets have been shot at Israel; hundreds of tons of ammunition and weapons have been smuggled into Gaza through underground caves; Gilad Shalit has not been released and the legitimization of the Hamas terror has increased worldwide. As a result, the feeling of independence as a national autonomous and legitimate state today carries a question mark.



Our conscious memory of the Sderot and western Negev rocket reality, as Israelis living outside of Sderot, is almost non-existent. Because there is relative “quiet”, with only some individual deaths, we have forgotten the fact that we disengaged from Gaza based on the formula of “land for peace”. Yet, since that day, more than 7000 Qassam rockets have been fired at Israel. At least once a week since the ceasefire, Sderot residents experience the Color Red siren.



Today we are in the midst of the third cease fire in the last two years. During each of these periods, hundreds of rockets have been fired towards Israel. Iran has become part of the equation in the Gaza-Sderot conflict and is very close to home - right in Sderot’s back yard. When we do not remember, our consciousness is the recipient of the routine reality, a routine that provides legitimization for terror, and raises the question of our basic right to live as Jews and Israelis freely in our country.