Published: 24 April 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
DR RIAD MAJADLA’S 20-hour days begin in darkness, before sunrise. He awakens at 5am at home in the Arab village of Baka al-Garbiyeh in central Israel, and is soon driving south to Sharon Hospital 50 kilometres away, where he is the director of the coronavirus department at the only hospital in the country that's specifically designated for those who have contracted the virus.
Before doing his rounds, and like the medical staff he supervises, the 63-year-old Majadla – a veteran internist who in his “old,” pre-coronavirus life headed Sharon’s emergency room – suits up in personal protective equipment, covered head to toe with a hooded white coverall, mask and plastic face shield.
The hospital’s most critical cases are on ventilators in the intensive care unit, while the serious and more moderate cases – all under his supervision – are treated in separate wards. Any exposure to a COVID-19 positive patient poses a risk to Majadla and his co-workers' health.
When his shift ends at 4pm at Sharon Hospital, which together with Beilinson Hospital is part of the Rabin Medical Centre in Petach Tikva, and he prepares to leave, his second-oldest son, Amer Majadla, 29, is just arriving for his own 16-hour shift and donning his protective gear. It is Amer’s turn to monitor patients, checking their ECGs and analysing their blood work.
Meanwhile, in other medical facilities in central and northern Israel, Riad’s eldest son Omar, 31, Omar’s wife Nadine, 28, and son-in-law Kadri Mawassy, 37 – all of them physicians – are also treating COVID-19 patients.
FULL STORY Meet the Majadlas: An Arab family of doctors on Israel's coronavirus front lines (Haaretz)
Photo: The Majadla family of doctors (Riad Majadla)
