On the eve of the new civil New Year, Magen David Adom (MDA) summarized its activities over the past, presents its main activities in numbers.
MDA celebrated 92 years of activity in 2022, and during this year MDA EMTs and Paramedics were sent on 1,301,780 calls, on 2,000 emergency vehicles including mobile intensive care units (MICUs), ambulances and medicycles across the country. A call is received in the 101 Emergency Call Center on average every 10.8 seconds, and the average phone response time is just one second.
MDA Director General Eli Bin said: "Magen David Adom's staff and volunteers have worked to benefit the health of the residents of the State of Israel, day and night, on Shabbat and festivals, in summer and winter, with great dedication, professionalism, and from the heart, they have continued to be at the forefront of the battle against the spread of the Corona virus, and will continue to do so until it is eradicated. MDA continued to advance technologically in 2022, alongside the provision of some of the best emergency medical care in the world, and the collection of blood units for the benefit of Israel's residents during routine and crisis periods. In 2023, we will continue to do everything we can for Israel's residents, and we will not hold back on resources for the benefit of everyone's health."
The MDA Year in Numbers
MDA has 31,600 staff, including employees, volunteers, national service volunteers, including 14,598 youth volunteers. There are also 18,000 MDA Life Guardians. MDA volunteers gave over four and half million hours of volunteering. The oldest volunteer is a 93.5 year Jerusalem resident, the oldest medicycle rider is 80 years old from Tiberius, and the youngest volunteer is 14.
Magen David Adom runs 192 stations and dispatch posts across the country. There are some 2,000 MDA MICUs, ambulances, and medicycles across Israel, 46 electric rapid response vehicles, 48 4x4 vehicles, 17 ATVs, 16 jeepbulances, 24 major incident vehicles, 2 intensive care buses, 29 bullet-proof MICUs, ambulances and command vehicles, 3 vaccination and corona-testing caravans, and 2 mobile dispatch posts.
515 medicycles, including 48 heavy motorcycles, 196 electric bicycles, and 36 mini electric response vehicles (MERVs) across Israel. An intensive care boat is activated on the Sea of Galilee, and another boat by Eilat's beaches, and during their activation period between April to October, they were dispatched on 198 calls. Regarding Corona – once again this past year MDA EMTs and Paramedics tested millions of people in the drive-thru testing stations, at hundreds of rapid testing areas, and in people's homes using video-observed antigen testing. Tens of thousands of people were vaccinated by Magen David Adom teams in old-age homes, residential homes, schools, shopping malls and other places across Israel.
MDA's emergency vehicles were dispatched 1,301,780 times during 2022 – an average of a crew being dispatched every 24 seconds. MDA EMTs and Paramedics treated 53,692 injured people in vehicle accidents. 16,577 women in labor were conveyed to hospital, 983 of them delivered the baby with the assistance of MDA crews at home or on route to hospital. During the swimming season, MDA EMTs and Paramedics treated 292 victims of drowning rescued from the sea, swimming pools and other water sources.
350,000 men and women underwent CPR and first aid courses. 683 youth volunteers received major incident training, and 684 youth volunteers qualified as first aid trainers. 262,149 units of blood were collected by MDA's Blood Services staff, in blood drives that took place across the country, in the blood banks at MDA stations and on different army bases. 31% of the donors in 2022 were women, and 21.8% were first-time donors. MDA's Blood Services operated 46 bloodmobiles, 2 caravans, and 2 buses that can collect donations from 5 donors simultaneously. All blood donations were checked for blood type and risk of infectious diseases in MDA's Blood Services labs, and provided to all hospitals and the IDF. MDA's Milk Bank moved this year to its new location in the new MDA Blood Services Center in Ramla, and provided some 2,060 liters of milk to neonatal units across Israel. 230 human milk donors joined the Milk Bank in 2022, all meeting the highest medical standards, in order to provide milk of the highest quality to the premature babies.
MDA EMTs answered 85,609 calls in the Ukraine refugee call center that is operated from MDA's National Dispatch Center in Kiryat Ono, in cooperation with the Ministry of Welfare and Social Security, assisting refugees in Israel from the war with housing, food vouchers and medical treatment. 108 wishes were granted thanks to MDA's two Wish Ambulances. The organization operates 2 helicopters that are equipped with advanced intensive care equipment, and these treated and conveyed 294 sick and injured patients to hospitals across Israel. MDA operates a technologically advanced national command-and-control (C&C) vehicle and 3 regional C&C vehicles. MDA teams took part in 320 field drills. MDA's 101 Emergency Call Center received 2,898,816 calls in the past year, with an average of a call being received by MDA every 10.8 seconds – while the waiting time for a call to be answered is within 1 second only. MDA established 204 new Smart Stand Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) in 38 towns across Israel. Since the start of the PAD project, MDA has placed 1,385 Smart Stand PADs in 479 different towns. MDA has also placed 600 defibrillators in synagogues in Jerusalem and other cities.