And now a success from Sheba Medical Center

Following up from my last blog concerning the success at Haifa's Rambam hospital, Tel Aviv's Sheba hospital does not want to be outdone.


A three-week-old Beduin baby who would likely have been aborted if his mother had undergone an ultrasound scan during pregnancy has been saved from a congenital defect with sophisticated treatment, that included days of being connected to a $200,000 device at Sheba Medical Center’s Edward and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital.

The first son of Rahat residents Rasha and Shadi Elkranawi, themselves barely out of their teens, was born at 2.6 kilos in Rasha’s ninth month at Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba.His condition immediately turned critical, as doctors diagnosed a diaphramatic hernia, in which the intestines move up into the chest cavity and put pressure on the lungs.

Soroka lacked the special equipment needed to keep him breathing and his heart beating after an operation.Although doctors didn’t know if the baby would survive the transfer to Sheba at Tel Hashomer, they nonetheless sent him there and hasty arrangements were made for him with the head of the medical center’s pediatric intensive care department. Four expert staffers – some of them on vacation in other parts of the country – were urgently called to the department to perform surgery to push the intestines back into the baby’s abdomen and repair the hernia.

The full story can be read at http://www.jpost.com/HealthAndSci-Tech/Health/Article.aspx?id=186772

The operation was a battle against time. Due to the pressure, some damage had already been done to the lungs. However the doctors performed miracles and now the baby is home and will not need any special treatment or equipment as he recovers.