Schneider Marks a Busy 5781

At this time of the beginning of the New Jewish Year of 5782,as a year of productivity, clinical and research successes alongside coping with corona and days of violence. We do so with the hope that next year will herald a return to normalcy.

Over the past year:

• Some 47,000 infants, children and youth from all over the country were treated in the Emergency Medicine Department (ER), the largest of its kind in the country
• About 235,000 visits were registered in the various clinics and institutes
• 42 bone marrow transplants were conducted
• 46 organ transplants were performed among whom were
   a 14-month-old child who suffered from congenital liver disease
   a two-year-old toddler who suffered from a bile duct disorder
   an 11-year-old girl who suffered from a life-threatening metabolic genetic disorder

An altruistic kidney donation gave a new lease of life to a two-year-old who was born with chronic kidney failure. He was being treated in the Nephrology Institute at Schneider Children's and was one step away from starting dialysis. Following several unsuccessful attempts with potential donors that failed due to incompatibility, his parents were surprised to hear the happy news that a suitable donor had finally been found. A mother of five children decided to donate a kidney to a child she did not know in order to save a life. The case caused much excitement among the medical teams while the donor was applauded for her courage and humanitarian spirit.

Schneider specialists treated many children and infants who inhaled and swallowed foreign objects, including a two-and-a-half-year-old who swallowed a jelly ball. This kind of game is extremely dangerous and can cause immense damage when these balls are swallowed by small children as they swell inside the body and lead to life-threatnening blockage of the duodenum. The foreign body was successfully extracted through gastroscopy by an ENT specialist.

Great drama occured at the hospital when an 18-month-old infant was brought in with a deep cut from glass in her neck, sustained when she fell from a supermarket trolley onto a broken bottle. The child arrived with a number of injuries to her neck, including the cut in the vertebral artery located deep in the back of her neck along her spine. She was attended to by a multidisciplinary a team of anesthetists, and specialists in ENT, orthopedics, neurosurgery, vascular, cardiac and nursing, ultrasound and cardiac catheter technicians. It was decided to place her on a heart-lung machine all while prolonged resuscitation ensued. The infant recovered amazingly well and was discharged from hospital in full health.

As part of Operation Guardian of the Walls that took place in May, teams of doctors and nurses transferred all critical care patients hospitalized in Schneider Children's intensive care units to a fortified emergency area in the building. The reinforced location was created for emergencies to ensure critically ill infants and children could be accorded ongoing monitoring. Some infants in the Neonatology Department were also transferred to an alternate protected area. The transfer operation was a complex logistical undertaking than took place over many hours prior to rockets that fell on the city of Petach Tikva.

An extraordinary story took place at Schneider Children's when a 7-year-old suffering from a complex cardiac disorder and congenital anemia had to undergo open heart surgery. Since a matching blood donor was not found due to her rare blood type, Schneider collaborated with Red Magen David and Beilinson Hospital to search for a matching donor in Israel or abroad. A response arrived from the Japanese Red Cross, which identified and sent two blood units to Israel, which were successfully infused into the child during surgery.

Also during the past year, the nursing staff at Schneider Children's mobilized to participate in the national coronavirus vaccination campaign, even though the hospital is for children. As a result, some 14,287 individuals of all ages from all over Israel received their vaccinations at Schneider.