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A Hero in a Nursing Home
By Gilad Hadari
Gilad in his UH uniform
My name is Gilad Hadari, I live in a small town named Elon Moreh. My town is nestled in the hills of Samarai near the city of Nablus. I’m a divorcee, and I have three young children whom I was supposed to spend the weekend with a few weeks ago. After all, it was my birthday. But my plans changed dramatically on Friday afternoon af ter I received a phone call just before Shabbat began from the head of the Bnei Brak Chapter Ephraim (Effy) Feldman.
Effy and I have known each other for a while as I have been volunteering with United Hatzalah for close to 12 years now. Effy knew that I was a registered nurse and that I have experience working in a nursing home. He asked if I would be willing to come down to Bnei Brak, some 70 kilometers (or 44 miles) away in order to take over for the medical staff of a nursing home. The staff had all called in sick as many of them had contracted corona or were in forced home isolation and there was no one to manage the home until more staff could be found.
On Thursday night, the city of Bnei Brak was put on lockdown by the Israeli government due to the rampant outbreak of the Covid-19 virus that had permeated the city. The disease was taking its toll among the staff of this nursing home and throughout the city. Officials in the Health Ministry speculated that 75,000 residents of the city had the virus, and there simply aren’t enough testing kits to get to them all so many are left untested. The IDF and the Home Front Command took over running the city. No one was allowed in or out without their travel being deemed absolutely necessary.
It was into this bedlam that I ventured. Effy sent an ambulance to transport me from my home to Bnei Brak. Due to it being Shabbat, and according to Jewish law, I wasn’t allowed to take any non-essential items with me – no personal belongings, no food, just my phone as I would need that to communicate with the Social in this nursing home are invalids. I grabbed the files of each of the patients and went over them one at a time to familiarize myself with who needed which medication and what medical conditions to expect. After running a quick inventory, I realized that we didn’t have enough masks or full protective gear for me and the manager to make it through the weekend.
I called Social Services and the Home Front Command and told them that I needed a lot more supplies. There was no food for me personal
Services and Home Front Command and update them about what was happening at the home over the course of Shabbat.
When I arrived at the home, I found that I was the only medical staff at the location. The manager of the home was there, and he and I were alone. He had no medical training and was not allowed to perform even the most basic medical tasks required by the patients. There weren’t even any available auxiliary staff.
Seventy percent of the residents ly, and patients needed their diapers changed. Some hadn’t been changed for 12 hours.
Sometime later, a nursing student from Ichilov hospital came, and we worked together tirelessly until 2:00 a.m. when he said he had to leave so he could make his shift the next day at the hospital. I was once again alone together with the manager of the home. Over the course of the night we attended to each patient’s needs, and I prepared all of the medication for each patient according to their chart, although I relied on the manager to tell me which patient was whom. We went person by person and made sure that everyone was comfortable and received their proper meds.
In the morning, another nurse arrived for an eight-hour shift. We worked together and continued providing care for the patients. But then she too left. After that, I was on my own until Sunday night, working and caring for the patients non-stop. There was no other medical or auxiliary staff present. Usually, the nursing home has a team of four nurses and numerous auxiliary staff, but all of the staff who was supposed to work over the weekend had contacted the virus or were in home isolation due to being in close proximity with someone who had.
By Saturday morning, I had two people whom I suspected of having contracted the virus. I based my suspicions upon them displaying symptoms associated with the disease. I contacted the chief officer of the medical station in the city and requested two ambulances be sent to take these patients to Tel HaShomer Hospital. In the end, one person had contracted corona; the other person didn’t. This caused the medical center to send testing teams to test all of the residents. I, too, was tested, but my test was “lost” and therefore when everyone received their results on Saturday night (thankfully everyone else was negative) I didn’t get any results at all. After calling to inquire what my
Gilad at the Home preparing meds on Saturday night
results were, I had been told that my test had never made it to the lab but was lost on the way. I continued caring for my charges over the course of the next day as well. I provided medication for those who needed and assisted others with their basic needs as well.
Over the course of Saturday, a day when religious Jews traditionally don’t use the phone, I received 250 phone calls from worried family members, the Home Front Command, the IDF, and Social Services from the city all wanting to know what was happening and what was needed. Often, when I told them what was needed, they said that they will do their best to provide it but didn’t really follow through. I had to make do with what I had.
On Sunday night, I was relieved by a skeleton team. I had been awake and working for more than 48 hours. I went home and slept for a few hours and then went shopping. I’m trying now to get myself tested but my medical clinic told me that if I am not showing active symptoms then they won’t issue a test for me as tests are scarce throughout Israel. The ambulance service, which is also conducting testing, has told me the same thing.
On Monday, I finally got to spend some time with my children who all asked me how my weekend was. There was no real way to explain to them what had transpired. My children range in age from 4-6-year old. I was wondering what to tell them and the only message that came to mind after a weekend like this was: “It is always important to help others whenever you get the chance. Just like I save lives as an EMS first responder, I also save lives as a nurse and that is what I was doing over the weekend.”
My children all looked at me and gave me a big group hug before running off to play some more. While it wasn’t ideal for me to miss my weekend with them, in time they will understand why I did it. That may be the most important message that I could ever teach them.
Dear Five Towns Community,
These are unprecedented and uncertain times. We see beloved grandparents and gedolim dying, community members laid off en masse, and young children cooped up at home, anxiously trying to process a world that seems scarier than the one they lived in last month. Our community is reeling, and our trademark togetherness is shattered, although we are all trying to glue the fabric of our community back together via Zoom and quick curbside hellos.
At the same time that the world has imploded around us, we have seen beautiful examples of our community at its finest. Hatzalah, Achiezer, and myriad other organizations and individuals are performing chessed on a daily basis. New chessed initiatives, virtual beis medrashim, and so much more have sprung up to fill the void.
With all of the global chaos, shopping (for anything other than basics) is far from many people’s minds. And for those who have been laid off or whose finances are uncertain, retail shopping should be the least of your concerns. This article is in no way intended to minimize the public health crisis that we face or the financial issues many are facing. But for anyone who is in a position to help support local business, it is more imperative than ever that you try to do so! Let me explain why...
enue and the many other local businessowners are not just nameless, faceless business people, angling for a buck.
We are your friends and your family and your neighbors. We or one of our employees sit next to you in shul. We might have sponsored your child’s little league team, and we definitely supported your shul’s Chinese Auc
Our businesses are shut or crippled, and our families and employees rely on the success of those businesses for our livelihoods. Most businessowners will pay their employees no matter what, even if it means not taking home their own pay. When someone loses their job now (which is terrible), they lose a set monthly income they relied on. Perhaps un
tion and your school’s raffle. Our ads help finance the local papers and our businesses employ many other people. We help make this a “Town” and not just an Avenue.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US
And now we are hurting. “Stop the Spread” has saved lives but the governor’s shutdown orders also crushed every Jewish retailer’s most important month: the month before Pesach. And now it continues with no clear end in sight, no obvious date for Central Avenue to magically return to normal or even semi-normal. employment payments or the stimulus check has helped ease that temporarily. We hope that every person enduring the agony of losing their job sees a recovery quickly!
If one of us loses our business, we could also be consumed instantly by insane amounts of debt – and businessowners don’t get to collect unemployment. When we took a “risk” by becoming an entrepreneur, or took out a loan to grow our business, we never dreamed that the whole world could shut down, leaving our stores closed and our debts piling up with no clear end in sight. That could mean, for some, an instant loss of their expected income and insurmountable debt. It could take years to recover. Unfortunately, some businessowners and their spouses and children might never recover.
Our sales revenue numbers aren’t just actuarial data on an excel spreadsheet; they are what determine if we make it. For the majority of us small businessowners, it’s not just what determines if the business makes money, but whether we make money. We rely on these businesses to support our families. We rely on your patronage to sustain that business.
WHY IT’S HAPPENING
With no clear end date to the stay-shut orders in sight, we are all panicking. Restaurants rely on a mix of sit-down, takeout, and catering to sustain their business. Curbside pickup and Uber Eats deliveries is not a sustainable business model long-term for almost every restaurant. Those reliant on the simchos industry like caterers, singers, and photographers are getting crushed as well right now. Some local businesses were newly acquired by their owners, while others just completed a renovation. Some businesses have money in the bank for a rainy day but many do not and live month to month, relying on each month being like the prior one.
Businesses like your local clothing and shoe stores that carry seasonal inventory made purchase orders over 6 months ago assuming that this spring/summer season would be like any other. Some of those stores
maxed out their credit lines to make those purchases. And now they face the reality that they may not see a reopening in time to move all of this backlogged merchandise. To you, a 30% off or a 50% off sale right after Pesach is a metziah. For them, it is a desperate reaction to a desperate new reality.
Who can afford to get stuck holding outdated inventory? Usually these businesses rely on selling the bulk of their merchandise at the beginning of the season at full price and gradually discounting items as the season nears the end. This year, businesses jumped straight to slashing prices, desperate to generate some minimal sales while closed. That means profits are out the window. This is “damage control” time for most stores.
In terms of non-retail, local self-employed lawyers, doctors, social workers, and other service providers are struggling as well since they are closed or severely limited in their ability to perform their jobs. Camp owners, little leagues, and gymnastics centers face uncertain futures, frozen enrollment, and a ticking countdown clock on their seasons.
WHY CAN’T THE GOVERNMENT FIX THIS?
What about government bailouts, you ask? Sadly, the SBA programs have been doomed from day one. It is literally impossible for the government to float enough Monopoly money to sustain every business through a lengthy lockdown. And even businesses that “won” the SBA jackpot are funded based upon their payroll, not the size or needs of their business, so a store may receive a forgivable loan but it requires them to pay employees for the next eight weeks while they are closed and the employees cannot work anyways. Another business may have only 1 or 2 salaried employees but they could be sitting on a million dollars’ worth of inventory they can’t sell or their rent might be $15,000 per month and their landlord won’t negotiate with them.
WHEN WILL IT END?
We all want a return to normalcy. We all hope we can save lives and see improvements to the health and safety of the Five Towns community and New York in general. We hope that this progress comes quickly and that shuls, schools, stores and more can start to reopen.
If the summer can see a return to semi-normalcy for Central Avenue, then hopefully all of the businesses you know and love will make it out on the other side. Hopefully our children will get to play outdoors and attend camp and we can all grab a coffee and window shop on the Avenue again! We hope. But we just don’t know. Only Hashem knows.
But if things take a lot longer? If stores can’t reopen for months or they reopen but shoppers just aren’t around? Many of the stores you know and love might not be around the next time Central Avenue becomes the shopping hub of our lives again. And that would be a shame. Again, the loss wouldn’t just be a matter of how many different pizza choices you have. The loss of every store or business is another Jewish family or families facing an uncertain future, their source of a living ripped away by this disease. Covid-19 is taking lives and ruining lives in many different ways.
SO HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US?
For the restaurants and other businesses that are open in some capacity, please patronize them. For stores forced to close, you can shop on their websites. Or find them on Ins tagram or call them. Most stores are taking orders and then shipping or delivering them locally. Even so, online orders for many businesses can’t possibly match the sales they were making when the storefront was also open.
Consider changing your habits. If you were going to buy a pair of shoes on Amazon, consider buying from a local retailer. Amazon has given up on 2-day deliveries anyways and many items on Amazon Prime are taking far longer to arrive. Consider whether a retailer locally might have what you are looking for. Try to find other items or services you used to buy online or from a big box retailer and try to
support the small businesses here in the Five Towns.
If you don’t need anything now, but have a favorite store, buy a gift certificate. Help their cash flow problem now and get yourself something nice later. Or give the gift certificate to someone else who needs it or as a gift. Perhaps you can stockpile something now that you know you purchase regularly anyways.
Many businesses have gotten creative. Caterers have “to-go” kiddush packages, local entertainers or entertainment places are offering affordable Zoom sessions, retailers are offering free shipping or local delivery. We are all trying our best to stay afloat in these trying times. So please shop local if you can!
If we all keep helping each other and having each other’s backs, hopefully Hashem will bring an end to the virus, and we can look forward to a brighter, healthier future for us all.
Sincerely, A Concerned Local Businessowner
