Gali Weiss was a career officer in the Israeli Defence Forces; then she became head nurse at Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem. She's been missing from her post there for the past couple of weeks though. She's been head nurse at the Israeli field hospital caring for earthquake victims in Haiti.Seeing sights, she says, like she's never seen before, like the streams of people in need leading up to the entrance of the hospital. Doctors have been working all hours. There is no end, she says, to the number of orphans after the earthquake, and no guarantee of where they will go.
More than 150,000 dead have now been buried. Almost 200,000 are believed to have died. More than a million and a half people are said to be homeless. Aid is expected to continue to be needed for months to come.
Her most difficult experience to date was delivering what the medical team thought was a stillborn baby. To their surprise, there was a second, living child in the womb. A story with a painful beginning had a good ending.
Conditions are difficult, with heat, flies and mosquitoes. "Every now and then," said Gali, "we have to pause and wipe away our tears. Then we just need to compose ourselves and move on to the next patient."
