The right doctor at the right time – Twice!

The phrase “being in the right place at the right time” is not just a cliché, at least not for Dr. Younes Urwa, a senior physician in the Surgery Division at Hillel Yaffe. In just eight months, Dr. Urwa has saved two hospital employees after he had been present “by chance” in the place where the incidents took place. For someone who is mainly used to helping patients, it was, undoubtedly, something unusual.

The first case took place in February, when Dr. Urwa was alone in his room together with Dr. Alexander Korin, Director of the Trauma Unit of the Surgery Division, when the latter suffered a cardiac arrest at the end of his shift at the hospital. Dr. Urwa resuscitated him and saved his life.

Dr. Younes Urwa and Shlomit Lugasi

The second time was during the past month, when Dr. Urwa came to the Human Resources Department for a work meeting, and in the next room, Ms. Shlomit Lugasi, the Director of the Human Resources Department in the hospital’s health corporation, was seized with a severe coughing fit to the point that she suffered from shortness of breath and asphyxiation. Dr. Urwa rushed to the adjoining room and took her immediately to the Emergency Room, where he helped the Emergency Room staff attach her to supplemental oxygen and a ventilator. He also accompanied her throughout the Emergency Room process, including intravenous steroid treatment and more.

“After I had somewhat recovered, the Emergency Room staff told me that without Dr. Urwa’s professional and personal treatment, I would now probably be sedated and intubated,” says Lugasi, after she was hospitalized for three days for observation and returned to work this week.