Rambam’s Trauma and Emergency Center, managed by Director Dr. Hany Bahouth, is one of the busiest trauma centers in Israel.
A gunshot victim arriving at Rambam in 2021. Photography: Rambam HCC
Recently, several hours after doctors from the Trauma and Emergency Center at Rambam Health Care Campus presented a summary of the data regarding gunshot wound patients that the hospital received in 2021, three new patients with gunshot wounds from two different incidents were brought to the Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein Z”L Shock Trauma Room for treatment. At noon, a patient was transferred from another northern hospital, and later that evening, the two additional patients arrived – one of them was a 16-year-old boy. 2022 began with the killing of a 4-year-old boy who was also brought to Rambam, like dozens of others wounded by gunfire the north in recent years.
The most notable figure in 2021 is the number of gunshot wound patients received in the Green-Wagner Department of Emergency Medicine - 165 people, 27 of whom, were transferred from other hospitals. 15% of the patients suffering gunshot wounds in 2021 arrived at the hospital independently and not by ambulance. The number of victims constitutes a new record and an increase of 47% compared to 2020, when 112 such patients were received. In 2019, 95 patients with gunshot wounds came to Rambam, and in 2018, there 63.
When diving into the data, it turns out that the vast majority of the wounded were men – 95%, or 156 out of 165 patients. Most of the wounded (59 people) are from the 15-24 age group, and a particularly difficult statistic is that five of the wounded were under 14 years old. Seven of the hospitalized victims were under the age of 16.
With regard to the injured, there is a large range of injury severity. Four of the wounded who were brought to the Shock Trauma Room in the Department of Emergency Medicine were pronounced dead on arrival. 51 of the wounded were seriously injured, and only 26 of the wounded were defined as lightly wounded. 34 (25%) of the victims spent time in Rambam’s various intensive care units, and the average number of days spent in these units was six days. The average overall hospitalization time was seven days.
Given large number of wounded who arrived in serious or critical condition, it is not surprising that 12 of the patients who came to Rambam passed away as a result of their injuries – most of them in the shock trauma room during attempts to save their lives. Notes Dr. Bahouth, “Unfortunately, our Trauma and Emergency Center has extensive experience in treating these types of injuries, but thanks to our talented, dedicated medical teams, we have successfully saved many lives.”