The Jewish Medical Association (UK) hosted Dr Mohammed Al-Hadid at a breakfast meeting on Monday 7th October. Dr Al-Hadid told his audience how he had worked with colleagues to negotiate the admission of Magen David Adom to the International Red Cross. His approach throughout has been to promote positive co-operative initiatives, despite criticism and risk. Similarly he helped found, promote and develop the Masters course in Emergency Medicine at Ben Gurion University, the only such programme in the Middle East. Turning to current events he explained that Jordan lacked the resources of other Middle Eastern countries, but is confronted with a complex humanitarian crisis. The open border with Syria has resulted in a new influx of ~600,000 refugees. These are joining a similar number of Syrians already living in Jordan, as well as large cohorts of Palestinians and Egyptians, and migrant workers, so that today there are 6 million Jordanians and most probably a very similar number of refugees in the country. He explained how this situation creates cultural, educational, health and security problems, and how he and his colleagues are working to tackle them.
