image Photo: Reuters

Palestinian child given lifesaving Israeli medical care

A two-year-old Palestinian child from Ramallah has been able to return home after undergoing life-saving heart-surgery in Israel.

The toddler was admitted to an Israeli hospital to undergo an operation performed by the Israeli-based Save a Child’s Heart volunteer organization, that seeks to provide pediatric care in developing countries.

Unfortunately, restrictions imposed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority to combat the coronavirus lead to a prolonged separation between the patient and his family.

After he had been placed on a ventilator in Israel, the parents returned to their home in the West Bank city to check on the couple’s other children. They were then unable to return to the hospital when the pandemic unexpectedly broke out and led to closures between the two sides.

What happened next, said the lead Israeli surgeon who performed the operation, Dr. Lior Sasson, “is really an amazing story.” The “void” of comfort usually given by devoted parents to a “small child two years of age who needs his mother” was instead filled by dedicated “doctors and the nurses who took him as if he was their own child.”

The story had a joyous ending yesterday, when the young Palestinian child successfully recovered from the Israeli medical care and was finally able to be once again reunited with his family back home following the lifting of travel restrictions.