Free Yad Sarah device calls for help when subscriber falls

Yad Sarah, the largest voluntary organization in Israel, provides a spectrum of free or nominal cost services designed to make life easier for sick, disabled and elderly people and their families.

Today, more than four decades after it was founded, Yad Sarah has more than 100 branches throughout Israel run by more than 6,000 volunteers, and saves the Israeli economy several hundred million dollars per year in hospitalization and medical costs.

Yad Sarah's mission is to keep the ill and the elderly in their homes and out of institutions as long as possible. Home care in the natural environment of the family is most conducive to healthy recuperation, both physically and emotionally. It also costs much less.

Yad Sarah's best-known service is the lending of medical and rehabilitative equipment on a short-term basis free of charge to anyone who needs it from a stock of thousands of items, from crutches and wheelchairs to oxygen concentrators and electronic monitors.

Now an emergency device that sounds an alert at Yad Sarah when an elderly person falls and calls for medical help has been introduced by the voluntary organization.

A hip fracture in the elderly has to be repaired surgically within 48 hours or it can lead to complications and even death.

The inexpensive smart device will soon be available free at all of Yad Sarah’s 103 branches.

Developed in China, it is an upgrade of the emergency beeper worn like a watch on the wrist that calls Yad Sarah for help.

The button on the device doesn’t even have to be pressed; it senses when the wearer has lost his balance and fallen, said Yad Sarah founder and president and former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski, who set up the organization exactly 40 years ago when he sent a neighbor a steam vaporizer.

The disabled and elderly who live alone need only register for the emergency beeper service and receive the device. If they fall or call for help, Yad Sarah’s emergency center manned round the clock, seven days a week will respond according to the data about the subscriber that appear on their computer screens.

The lightweight wireless device connects to the regular home phone line and is suited to all telephone companies. It issues a signal if the phone line or electric cable have been disconnected. It has been approved by the Israel Standards Institution and the Communications Ministry.

It works on batteries in the event of a power failure and is water resistant.