February 7, 2022 – While drawing attention to the shortage of ECMO devices in Israel, this story also highlights the life-saving cooperation and coordination that exists between the ECMO units and intensive care units across Israel.

One night last week, a group of doctors, nurses and technicians emerged from an IDF Yasur helicopter that landed on the helicopter pad at Rambam Health Care Campus, carefully holding an ECMO device whose tubes were connected to a tiny, one-week-old baby. This act was the culmination of a joint operation carried out by medical teams from Rambam and Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center and Air Force units, in an attempt to save the life of a baby in severe respiratory distress (not resulting from COVID-19).

Rami Haizler, a senior ECMO technician at Rambam, recalls, “A team comprised of Dr. Tzvi Adler and Dr. Ahmed Alkum, attending physicians in Rambam’s Department of Cardiac Surgery; and ECMO technician Dor Levy set out for Soroka in an ambulance from the Merizan Company that was designed specifically to transfer patients on ECMO. After three hours of driving, the team joined the Soroka team and began to connect the baby to the ECMO device, but soon realized that the long trip back to Haifa could endanger his life. The teams turned to the IDF and, thanks to the combined efforts of the IDF Home Front Command and the Air Force, a military helicopter was recruited to transport the crew and the baby to the north.”

The unexpected flight to Rambam was much shorter than the drive down, and the baby was soon admitted to the Wagner-Green Pediatric Intensive Care Unit in Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital, where doctors are now fighting for his life.

In the photo: The IDF helicopter preparing to land on Rambam’s helipad.

Photography courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus.