JERUSALEM (J.T.A.) — A Palestinian baby remains in critical condition and is fighting for his life in a Tel Aviv hospital after receiving a heart transplanted from a Jewish child.
The 1-year-old Jewish child died from a chronic disease last week at Sheba...
Musa, the Palestinian baby, had been sent by doctors from a Ramallah hospital to Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital on several previous occasions to treat and stabilize him.
“There were several miracles associated with this complicated surgery,” [said Dr David Mishaly, chief surgeon at the Sheba Medical Center’s Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery Unit]. “There is no such thing in the Palestinian Authority as an ‘organ donor or organ waiting list’...” [but the Israeli baby’s heart was donated by the parents].
While Musa also miraculously survived the transplant surgery, his condition is still touch-and-go, since he was very sick to begin with...
Mishaly [described Sheba as “an oasis] of peace, where healing is the priority and everyone, regardless of who they are is treated equally, with dignity and respect.”
Musa’s grandmother said in a statement that her family “would like to meet the family of the Jewish child in the near future and thank them for their generosity.”
Readers who have followed Israeli medicine across the decades are aware that babies with serious health issues from ordinary families in neighboring areas and nations have always been able to receive care there. Wealthy families can get medical care for their children from the best their own nations have to offer, and quite often can bring their children to top hospitals in Europe, Canada, the United States or elsewhere if they wish. But those are not options for the majority.
All the needs of the patients and their accompanying parents are covered at Israel’s sole cost during their stay. Occasionally there is a conventional news report, such as in the case of quintuple or larger multiple pregnancies and births catching the attention of reporters. But such reports put parents and children from hostile nations at great risk — they’ve usually had to keep absolute secrecy about what they’re doing, and travel by very circuitous routes via friendly nations, in order to maintain anonymity and evade reprisal upon return home. Hopefully, baby Musa and his family, and the donors, are ushering in a better era.