Israeli humanitarian M*A*S*H field hospital in Haiti working double-duty in America's absence - 'The only ones operating"

Israeli field hospital earns accolades as the only aid mission able to do complex surgery in devastated country. CNN reports other missions transfer patients to Israeli base. ABC reported on young woman giving birth there.

CNN reported that Israel is the only state so far to have sent a field hospital equipped with all that is required for surgical operations. Doctors from various missions send patients requiring surgery to Israel's makeshift hospital, particularly those whose condition is critical, the news network said.

According to the report, other field hospitals contain no more than stretcher beds and medical teams who administer first aid, and they are not prepared for complex surgery.

More than 100 injured patients require surgery, but are unable to get it anywhere except at the Israeli field hospital in Port-au-Prince. The doctors are unable to meet the demand, and meanwhile the patients lie in tents, administered with painkillers, and cry for help. "They'll die within 24 hours if they don't get operated on," CNN's Medical Correspondent Dr. Elizabeth Cohen reports.

Criticism against the US mission was voiced in the ABC News item. The US had sent staff for a field hospital, but they had still not received the instruments required for surgery. The equipment was supposed to arrive by the weekend, but will get there only Monday night, it seems. Only then will the US be able to set up its field hospital. The Obama White House said that a US ship, to be used as a floating hospital, is also on the way from Baltimore to the earthquake-torn country. The ship, with 600 doctors and nurses as well as medical equipment is due to arrive within two days. (Ynet Mon 18 Jan 2010)



Harvard's Dr. Jennifer Furin treating Haiti's infectious-diseased: "No one except the Israeli hospital has taken (to save the lives of) any of our patients!" With tiny Israel from the far-side of the planet shipping, manning, and running the only humanitarian, mobile surgical hospital on the scene, another American doctor comments about their need to put-upon Israel, America's tiny, under-funded ally, "This almost makes you embarrassed to be an American." Watch CNN's Dr. Elizabeth Cohen's video news report

The Israel Defense Forces' field hospital is currently the largest operating in Port-au-Prince. It has a staff of over 40 doctors, with different specialists, nurses, paramedics and features a maternity ward, ICU, pediatrics unit, internal medicine department, a pharmacy, and operating rooms. The hospital can treat up to 500 patients a day.

Footage from the IDF Field Hospital that has been set up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake. This video includes footage of the first baby born at the field hospital on 17 January 2010. The mother arrived at the IDF field hospital 8 months pregnant and Maj. Dr. Shir Bar and Maj. Efrat Shayer delivered a healthy baby boy, whose mother named 'Israel' in tribute.



Exactly one year ago, Israel established a free humanitarian hospital to treat wounded Palestinians on the Gaza border. Hamas denied ill Palestinians access to these humanitarian medical services, which operated empty for weeks.