Dr. Tina Berkovits

Rescue operations:
In my capacity of one of the operators in the Israeli House in India I have been involved in different kinds of rescue operations.

  1. To me one of the more important ones was preventing the serious drug injuries- drug–induced psychosis - caused by massive drug abuse, hallucinogens as well as marihuana and jarras

Indeed there already is a serious reduction of flip cases in India (last year we had around 35 this year only about 8 drug injuries) our work was to further enhance the prevention of drug injuries, by making sure that Israeli backpackers were on the move and not hanging out for weeks on end in one of the guesthouses for example in Goa.
Since the visa to India is now restricted to 6 months that was a reasonable easy task, since most of the travelers go to India to see either the South or north, which involves a lot of train, local buses, and sleeper bus travels. Thailand and Nepal is also on the route and this leaves little time for hanging around in one place.
From experience we know that for different reasons there is much less drug abuse when people are traveling.

  1. Another kind of rescue this year involved treating road accident victims, who otherwise would have to find a hospital or trust a local doctor which is not always easy in the local villages with hardly any electricity or running water.

Some travelers prefer to sleep in shacks and even on the beach under less than poor hygienic conditions. This and the lack of knowledge about basic first aid often had me find wounds in deplorable conditions. Burns, infections, flea bites, allergies, sand fly bites, and abrasions had to be treated on a daily basis.

  1. Other rescue works involved travelers that had to be hospitalized and some of them had to go through surgery. This is a scary situation in a third world country like India if you don’t know the hospitals and procedures involved.

Since I had been in India before and worked as a district homeopathic doctor in Goa, I was quite familiar with the local doctor and hospitals in the area. This fact helped me to open doors for all kinds of emergencies, including transporting travelers home to Israel with the help of local hospitals and doctors.

  1. After I came back from India I was approached by parents whose child was traveling in India for a year and had a very bad road accident, which had to be treated by surgery immediately.

I was involved in the logistics of getting her transported from a small village in the center of India to Mumbai where they were equipped to do this kind of surgery, get her signed in the ward and ICU, I had to get to Mumbai in time before the surgery, stay with her until I finally took her home via El Al special flight two days after the surgery.

Because we have many connections in India and with the help of dear friends like Manas and Hilik Magnus and also the Consul and General Consul in Mumbai these operations are made possible and in this place I want to thank them for making it possible. Of course there are also numerous friends working in the background, which are too of valuable help. Thank you all

Here are some links about rescue works:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=review&id=2559&reviewid=VE1117936320

http://www.katharinaandpeter.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=53

http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/07/berlinale-flipping-out

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