Do no Harm

'The only place in Israel where one might guess that Arabs make up 20 percent of the national population, and where they coexist with Jews on a purely non-sectarian basis, is a hospital. There are a few other venues, notably universities, where Arabs work alongside Jews at both high and low professional levels, and where one might find an Arab boss giving orders to a Jewish subordinate, but the proportion of Arabs there is going to be small. A hospital, especially one in Galilee, the Negev or Jerusalem, is the only venue in this country where a foreigner who knew nothing about the Israeli-Arab conflict might spend time, then come away thinking that Israel is a country where a Jewish majority lives alongside a sizable Arab minority - and there is no problem between them'

- This is an quote from an artice found in this week's Jerusalem Post. As a health worker in an Israeli hospital, I have mentioned before my encounters with the wider Israeli population before and I often think about this gounding phenomenon...my conclusions:

Within the walls a hospital, I would like to believe that there is a certain respect for life. Our aim is to preserve life - there is a value placed on saving and caring for life. Outside the walls of a hospital I think people forget this value. They engage in behaviour which makes them think they are invincible. They do things not thinking of the consequences or effects that might occur and reverberations that might be felt in other people's lives...

The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708671867&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull