I have worked in the Coagulation Laboratory at Rambam Medical Center for 30 years. It is my second home.
I completed my BA at Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem. Right after finishing my studies, I began working in laboratory services, out of a sense of devotion to the people undergoing treatment. In my day-to-day routine at the lab, when I hold test tubes, I think about patients in distress who need treatment. Without the results of the lab work, no one will be able to decide how to treat them.
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This profession entails a great deal of pressure and responsibility. We are required to provide accurate, trustworthy results, and as medicine makes advances, so does laboratory equipment. But we don't have enough staff.
What does our day look like? Busy. I get to work at 6 a.m. I put on protective gear, turn on the machine, prepare the quality controls, and take care that all the equipment is in working order to start running the tests. We start the pneumatic system – through which the flood of samples arrive from the emergency room, the Intensive Care Unit, the various departments, as well as samples of patients who have been taken into surgery with the medical team waiting for results as soon as possible reach us.
The phones don't stop ringing. Doctors and nurses are asking about results, and if they can be rushed. Time is critical, and the tests are important to saving lives.
Recently, I was called to the hospital one evening to carry out special tests for a young pregnant woman who had arrived in a condition that posed a risk to her and her unborn baby. Calls like these are routine. I didn't hesitate, and I canceled my own plans. I rushed to the hospital, knowing that I'd be in the lab until late that night. But there was no room for deliberation. The young woman underwent a test for the ADAMTS-13 enzyme, which marks a rare condition called TTP, a condition that requires special urgent care to keep a woman who has it from becoming seriously ill or even dying. Thanks to the test, we identified the rare condition and we saved her life and her baby's. That is the magic of the public health care system.
It's a shame that the government is turning its back on us. It's a shame that the people who sit in the cabinet, and all the functionaries, don't see us.
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