in case u didn't c plea 4 support 4 hatzalah

c here (pls pardon poor typing--2 broken wrists)

informative comments:

3 Comments:

Mordechai Y. Scher said...

So Jameel, maybe you can answer a serious question I have. It also effects where I direct my limited Tzedakah funds. Why is there a need for Hatzalah, in addition to the well established Magen David Adom?

Way back when, MDA covered the needs of Israel pretty well. From the Golan to Eilat, and the Yarden to the Med. At some point, when I wasn't looking, Hatzalah sprang up. Now, it seems to me that Hatzalah is duplicating efforts and 'competing' for resources. How and why did this come about?

Thanks!

4:14 AM, January 02, 2009

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Dear Mordechai,

MDA and United Hatzala work together -- in fact, you cannot be a Hatzala volunteer unless you are certified by MDA and volunteer with MDA. (I volunteer for MDA, by being an MDA ambulance driver).

However, Hatzala is the organization that provided me with equipment and 24/7 cellular (meers) radio service. The radio on my belt is paid for by Hatzala, as is the medical equipment in my car; Basic Life Support, Oxygen, and an Defribrillator.

Hatzala helps expand the range of volunteers for MDA, and allows for a quicker, "first response".

Besdies ambulances, MDA handles a national infrastructure of command centers, the "101" phone dispatcher (like 911 in the US), and training.

So the 2 organizations are very important, and they compliment each other....and I volunteer for both.

8:36 AM, January 02, 2009

D said...

It would seem to me that Hatzalah is a complimentary rapid response citizen unit to the more official MDA. While the MDA handles a large scope of services, the specialized focus of Hatzalah should allow it to excel in it's first-response area of expertise. Specialization always provides for the highest degree of skill and efficiency. That being said, it would indeed be a duplication of effort should they try to expand into the full range of services that the MDA provides and is responsible for.


One of the aspects of focus that seems to separate Hatzalah from the MDA is the decentralized model of using on-call citizens where they live and work. This type of distributed network is a brilliant supplemental system to regional level medical services, and does not compete with it, but rather adds to it by providing smaller, faster "nodes" of localized service that can respond faster than a centralized service. By using people "where they are", it opens the door to service to thousands of people who are already "onsite" in various locals where emergencies occur.


Indeed, in reading Jameel's comment, it would seem to me that the Hatzalah model allows him to serve the people at a personal level, on-call where he happens to be at any given moment, beyond his more general MDA service. In a way it is like he spends part of his time as a centralized resource (MDA ambulance driver), then converts into a "field" resource where his normal life places him out in the world almost like an MDA person "on patrol". In this sense Hatzalah would be a natural extension of the MDA, and it's easy to see why Jameel is involved with both. The fact that Hatzalah is self-managed from a volunteer organization means a negligible expense structure that is of tremendous benefit to the MDA, who likely could not afford to organize, support, and maintain a similar "extended force" of their own.

1:10 PM, January 02, 2009