During his first six months at the pediatric emergency unit of a busy Tel Aviv-area hospital, Dr. Yoram Ben Yehuda saw not one instance of child abuse. He checked with neighboring hospitals and found they, too, seldom saw child abuse. Today, Dr. Ben Yehuda is head of the pediatric emergency unit at the HadassahโHebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, responsible for youngsters under 18 at its newly created Bat Ami Center for Treating Sexual Abuse and proactive in child protection nationwide.
However, it was in Virginia that Dr. The child was sent to his primary-care physician for further testing. Abuse was not considered.
All results were negative. Ben Yehuda. She was, in fact, Israeli. Two weeks later, the child was in pediatric intensive care. Scans showed multiple fractures and hemorrhages, old and newโirrefutable evidence of shaking and battering. Ben Yehuda returned to Israel in late on a mission far broader than his new job of founding and directing a pediatric emergency unit at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon.
As the months passed without any abuse cases reported, he began teaching colleaguesโphysicians, nurses and social workersโwhat to look for. It was only 12 years since Israel had officially accepted that child abuse existed in the country, and few in the medical establishment knew much about diagnosing it. A rare exception was Dr. Yigal Shvil, a pediatrician at Hadassah. In , he had saved a 9-month-old baby from her violent father and took the offender to court in the first child abuse case ever heard in the Israeli judicial system the father was ultimately prosecuted under a different charge.
Shvil would prove a valued colleague and mentor. In , Dr. Ben Yehuda moved to Hadassah to revamp and direct its pediatric emergency service and was in place to succeed Dr. Ben Yehuda was appointed director of its pediatric section. Bat Ami, funded primarily by Hadassah and the Israeli government, was created to provide a streamlined, sensitive service and encourage victims to report the crimes against them.
