“They spoke about loss of life as in the event that they’re happening to the grocery and talking about which ice cream they may purchase,” Dr. Mozer-Glassberg stated.
The struggle has hit ladies and youngsters particularly laborious in Gaza as effectively. They make up lots of the 15,000 individuals reported killed in Gaza because the struggle started on Oct. 7, in keeping with U.N. and well being officers in Gaza.
Dr. Bron-Harlev had lengthy deliberate on how her hospital would welcome the youngsters who have been held hostage. Simply over per week after Oct. 7, she emailed the Ministry of Well being: “Let’s take into consideration optimistic days when the youngsters will come again from captivity.”
She started constructing a crew that resembled a whole new ward. She didn’t know if any hostages had undergone sexual trauma, she stated, so she created a crew largely made up of ladies. She didn’t know if anybody would return with acute bodily trauma, so she positioned a crew on name that included the top of the intensive care unit, the top of anesthesiology, the top of the surgical crew and the top of orthopedics.
Dr. Bron-Harlev then constructed a small inside circle that included senior docs and nurses, social staff and psychologists, hospital help employees and kitchen employees. Meals may very well be an enormous challenge, she thought. What would they have the ability to abdomen, and what would they need?
When the youngsters arrived, some with their moms, they have been greeted slowly. They first reunited with their households and got time collectively. The medical groups approached every baby and mom delicately.
“We took it slowly, one step in, two steps out, to see what their wants have been,” Efrat Harel, the medical heart’s director of social providers, stated. Every affected person was assigned a physician, a nurse, a social employee and a psychologist.
They discovered sufferers who had misplaced 10 to fifteen p.c of their physique weight, who had heads stuffed with lice and torsos stuffed with bites, and who had hygiene in contrast to something the hospital had ever seen. Many bathed solely as soon as throughout captivity, proper earlier than they have been set to be launched, with a bucket of chilly water and a rag.
One affected person was particularly snug with Dr. Mozer-Glassberg, so she spent 4 days slowly brushing the woman’s hair with a lice comb and quietly crying. Dr. Mozer-Glassberg recalled her asking if she ought to shave her head as a result of the infestation was so extreme. “They’ll disappear ultimately,” Dr. Mozer-Glassberg assured her of the lice. “They’ll go.”
She had initially feared that the youngsters would have refeeding syndrome, a harmful situation by which somebody who’s undernourished begins consuming usually once more earlier than the physique is ready to digest bigger parts.
Nonetheless, when given meals, many youngsters took a couple of small bites, solely to place the meals to the facet. When requested why, Dr. Mozer-Glassberg stated that they had responded, “So the meals will final for the remainder of the day.”
Regardless of reassurances that extra meals was accessible, many youngsters struggled to eat.
Then, one baby, at 1 a.m. on his second night time on the hospital, requested for schnitzel and mashed potatoes — a joyful improvement — and the kitchen employees enthusiastically ready the meals and located a pleasant plate, silverware and a glass for serving.
Kids started talking in voices louder than whispers and enjoying with relations outdoors of their rooms.
However questions and worries nonetheless hang-out their dad and mom and caregivers.
One mom instructed the story of how she and her baby have been taken to Gaza on the again of a tractor with a soldier who had been gravely injured. Her daughter was lined in his blood by the point they reached Gaza, and the kid requested the mom, “What occurred to the person who was pouring pink?” Dr. Bron-Harlev stated, translating.
The kid nonetheless asks concerning the man. The mom doesn’t know what grew to become of him.
On Monday, after sirens went off in Petah Tikva, sending the woman and her mom to a hospital secure room, the woman requested her mom in the event that they have been going again to the tunnels. When she assured her daughter they weren’t, the woman then requested in the event that they have been transferring places, as they did in Gaza.
The hospital’s work is heartbreaking, and employees members have leaned on one another for help, Dani Lotan, the director of psychological providers at Schneider Kids’s, stated. Many spoke of getting to decelerate, to comprehend they might not rehabilitate the youngsters and moms in a day or two or “compensate them for every thing they misplaced,” Mr. Lotan stated.
Like a lot of Israel, Dr. Mozer-Glassberg is hoping she will deal with two extra youngsters, Kfir Bibas, who was 9 months outdated when kidnapped together with his 4-year-old brother, Ariel Bibas. Hamas claimed that each youngsters and their mom, Shiri, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, however Israeli officers haven’t confirmed the report. The Bibas household has stated they hope claims can be “refuted by army officers.”
As Dr. Mozer-Glassberg spoke, a blaring siren started ringing outdoors, and her cellphone introduced “tzevah adom” in Hebrew — pink alert.
“Ach,” she stated, grabbing her issues and strolling with the remainder of the employees to a close-by stairwell, as Israel’s Iron Dome protection system may very well be heard intercepting missiles overheard.
Her work and the struggle have been removed from over.
