Saving lives is in our blood so backing Magen David Adom remains crucial
At the start of this month, I was privileged to attend the opening of Magen David Adom’s Marcus National Blood Services Centre in Ramle. Five years in the making, this £90 million state-of-the-art centre was funded by a three-way partnership between MDA UK, American Friends of MDA and the Government of Israel. This is a collaboration we were honoured to have been a part of and it was fantastic to see the culmination of years of hard work in person.
The backing of both Anglo-Jewry and our Christian supporters for this project has been truly incredible. Over the past five years, as well as generously funding a number of rooms and areas, MDA UK donors contributed over 100 mezuzot, each affixed to a door frame within the centre.
It was wonderful to meet Mohammed, an Israeli-Arab art student from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, who was involved in a competition for art students to have their mezuzot design used. Seeing Mohammed’s mezuzah was a true reminder of the diversity of those involved across Magen David Adom and the State of Israel.
People sometimes ask me why they should support Israel’s national blood service, saying: “Isn’t that the role of the Israeli Government? My answer is always the same — the challenges facing MDA are not like those that face our emergency services here in the UK.
As well as living along the active SyrianAfrican earthquake fault line, the people of Israel are under constant threat of terror in the centre of a region where almost all of our neighbours have at some point turned against us. It’s for this reason that we urgently need facilities like the blood centre.
It’s the first blood bank established specifically with the goal of protecting Israel’s blood supply in the face of rapid population growth (as we have seen recently with the influx of those making aliyah from Ukraine), the ongoing threat of terrorism and the increasingly complex risks of cyber-attack. The six-storey, non-combustible steel and
concrete building will serve as the new location for all MDA’s blood-processing operations, including a laboratory for rare blood types and a stem cell bank.
While governments can provide good infrastructure and facilities for medical care, in my 11 years as MDA UK chief executive, I’ve seen countless times how philanthropy and charity can turn something good into something great. Our community has supported Israel for generations — this blood centre is just the latest example.
We can all be proud when people like Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting visit our facilities.
On his recent trip with Labour Friends of Israel, he told us that Israel is “well over a decade ahead of the NHS” in terms of its advances in medical technology. We discussed how this technology can be emulated in the UK to improve response times and treatment.
It’s an example of how our continued support of MDA’s services has the potential to save countless lives, both in Israel and the UK. With Israeli Friends of MDA now raising in excess of 25m NIS (£6m) annually, our joint fundraising efforts will take this technology from strength to strength.
Although my week in Israel began with the high of the centre’s opening, it was marred by news of the devastating terror attack in Elad in which three people died.
Sadly, this was just one attack in the recent spate of terror that has returned to the streets of Israel. In this instance, MDA supplied 23 units of blood to five seriously injured victims. It’s times like this that demonstrate the importance of MDA’s role as Israel’s only national blood and medical emergency service.
Thankfully, the centre’s cutting-edge technology will enable us to collect, process, securely store and distribute 350,000 of these units of blood each year.
I am grateful to everyone who has played a part in bringing the centre to fruition and want to extend an open invitation from all of us at MDA to come and visit it as you begin your long-awaited journeys back to the country we all hold so dear.