Israel Active

Jerusalem’s Herzog Medical Center is supported by organizations in the USA, Canada, and the UK. The British Friends of the hospital have just launched a national campaign "Helping the Helpers"’ providing support for mental health professionals treating an increasing number of trauma patients.

Lynette Hoffman-Elharar remembers a time when Essential tremor meant she could not hold a glass of water or draw a straight line. Now, after undergoing noninvasive MRI-guided focused ultrasound (MRIgFUS) at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus, she is knitting woolen hats for IDF soldiers.

35% of patients that died of Covid-19 were diabetics. This led scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute to discover that high blood sugar levels disrupted the immune system response to infection. They then developed experimental medication to reverse the sugar-induced dysfunction.

Menashe Eisner, 63, suffered a heart attack and was placed on life support. A complex bypass operation failed. Then surgeons at Haifa’s Rambam Health Care Campus implanted a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). Miraculously, 40 days later, Eisner was able to go home.

Traumatized survivors of the Hamas Oct 7 terror attacks and IDF soldiers with PTSD are receiving HBOT therapy (see ) breathing pure oxygen in high pressure cabins. It is one of the treatments available to patients of the national clinic for PTSD, created by Tel Aviv University. .

Despite many tragic losses, two IDF soldiers survived gunshot wounds that are usually fatal. Major Itai was hit by a bullet that is still lodged in his brain and cannot be removed. Another bullet passed through Sgt Oren Dovid’s heart.  Following surgery, both want to return to their units.   (Hebrew video of Major Itai, but easy to appreciate.)

Many of Israel’s IDF reservists are in the thirties and forties and not as fit and subtle as they used to be. So UK-born Tasha Cohen launched Chayal’s Angels of volunteer yoga therapists, massage therapists, acupuncturists, physiotherapists and chiropractors who treat 50 to 200 soldiers every day.

Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center has partnered with international investment firm Arieli Capital to create SHAAR - a joint healthcare innovation hub, designed to be a center for medical research. Healthcare companies will be invited to the first global scale-up cohort by the end of 2023.

UK’s University Hospital Birmingham has reduced the time taken to remove tumors by up to three hours thanks to 3D-printed cutting guides produced on a J5 MedJet printer from Israel’s Stratasys. It is transforming the way tumors are removed from head and neck cancer patients.

Treatment for asthma. (TY ) Israel’s Teva has bought the rights to complete the development of BD9 - an antibody-based therapy for the treatment of asthma and atopic dermatitis from Israel’s Biolojic Design (see previously). Biolojic's AI platform generates antibodies that have predictable functions.