Siegel-Itzkovich - Blind doctor can see again

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich..
Health & Science/JPost..
06 February '12..



(Kol HaKavod to Kaplan Medical Center and it's staff. Great story! Y.)

A retired Kaplan Medical Center pediatrician who became blind last year can see again thanks to a donated cornea transplanted into his right eye by his colleagues in the Rehovot hospital.

Dr. Vladimir Promovich, who made aliya from Ukraine in 1998, said that in gratitude for his restored eyesight, he will volunteer at Kaplan and examine patients.

The 69-year-old Promovich, a long-time specialist and Ashdod resident, underwent several attempts in 2011 to restore his sight but none of them succeeded.

Last week, after a patient died, the family agreed to donate the cornea, and the operation was conducted by Dr. Arye Markovich and his ophthalmology department team.

A relatively new technology enables doctors to split one cornea in half for transplantation into two recipients while removing only part of a cornea from the recipient.

“In Ukraine, I specialized in lung diseases including tuberculosis in children. When I came to Israel, I wanted to continue working as a doctor,” said Promovich.

Hair to Spare?

Hair to spare? Donate to make sidecurls, wigs for cancer patients

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
JPost
27 August 09

Kaplan Medical Center is asking for donations of hair to create "artificial sidecurls" (payot) for hassidic men and boys and wigs for women and girls of all backgrounds who undergo chemotherapy for cancer and lose their hair.

The veteran hairdresser Eli Ben-Zikri has opened a new hair salon inside the Rehovot hospital on a voluntary basis to collect donated hair in all colors that can be turned in sidecurls and wigs.

Anyone who wants to donate their long tresses will get a free haircut in the hospital salon, said Ben-Zikri, who has himself recovered from cancer.

He had met a young woman in the hospital who lost her hair to chemotherapy and couldn't afford to buy a wig to cover her bald head. He managed to give her a free wig that, he said, "gave her the strength to go on." But his salon has a shortage of hair to make wigs and sidecurls.

He personally suits the donor hair to the patients; once they have theirs, he washes, sets and maintains the wigs and sidecurls, all at no cost. Ben-Zikri also invites other hairdressers and barbers who want experience working in the field to come to his salon in Kaplan, learn and give of their time.

Hospital director-general Dr. Ya'acov Yahav said that when asked for permission to approve the project, he didn't have to think twice. Cancer patients' feelings about themselves and the way they look affects their ability to fight their disease, he said.
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