Ambulance races to the scene
Ambulance races to the sceneIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Hospitals throughout Israel have begun dealing with an overload of patients in the last few days, because of the spread of winter ailments, including various strains of the flu.

The overload is delaying the process of admitting patients into the emergency wards, and this in turn affects the Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance teams, which cannot leave the patients they bring in unattended before they are admitted to the hospital.

The MDA teams that are thus held up then have difficulty arriving in time for the next emergency case they are sent to deal with.

In order to deal with the problem, MDA Director Eli Bin gave instructions to increase the number of active ambulances in every shift, and to beef up the volunteer array.

MDA has called upon the public to continue dialing 101 for any emergency medical need and to listen to the instructions of the paramedics who answer the phones, until ambulance teams arrive.