MAGEN DAVID ADOM (MDA)

The national emergency medical, ambulance, blood, and disaster service of Israel.

Magen David Adom (MDA; "red shield of David" in Hebrew) was founded on 7 June 1930 as a first-aid society for the city of Tel Aviv with about twenty volunteers, an ambulance, and a first-aid hut. Seventy years later, MDA served the entire population of Israel with 9,000 volunteers, 1,000 paid employees (including physicians, medics and para-medics, ambulance emergency medical technicians, and blood bank and fractionation experts and technicians), and 600 ambulances.

MDA supplies all of the blood used for transfusions by Israel's armed forces and more than 85 percent of the country's blood requirements. It also provides first-aid instruction.

In 1950 MDA's duties and responsibilities were legally defined in the Magen David Adom Law, in which MDA was recognized as the organization entrusted to carry out in Israel the functions assigned to a National Red Cross Society under the Geneva Conventions. MDA failed, however, to gain recognition from the League of Red Cross Societies (which accepts the Red Crescent Society based in Muslim countries and the Red Lion and Sun Society based in Iran) because of Arab and Communist-bloc objections. The issue remains unresolved despite support from the American Red Cross for MDA's inclusion. Some progress was evident in mid-2003 with the signing of the first bilateral cooperation agreement between the MDA and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

see also medicine and public health; red crescent society.

Bibliography

Magen David Adom U.S.A. web site. Available from <http://www.magendavidadom.org/>.

miriam simon
updated by neil caplan