BEERSHEVA, Israel — Most doctors lose some of their patients and save others. Dr. Yoram Singer loses all of them.
This is because he ministers to dying people, helping them to come to terms with their situation and to bid farewell to their friends and family. Singer, born in Switzerland and trained at the Hebrew University’s Medical School, originally specialized in family medicine. But since 1993, he has headed a Beersheva-based team of doctors, nurses and social workers who counsel people on the verge of death.
His is a 24-hour-a-day job, for the moment he gets a call on his cell phone, Singer either offers advice or, if necessary, heads off to see the person in need.
“Sometimes,” he says, “I go to administer a medicine that will reduce a patient’s pain. There are also occasions, however, when all I’m asked to do is to hold the man or woman’s hand.”
When possible, Singer helps the family and friends of the patient set up a home hospice, as he did recently at Urim, a kibbutz not far from Beersheva.
“What troubles most patients in such a situation,” he says, “is not so much the prospect of death, but the process of dying — of being dehumanized, of becoming a burden. And it doesn’t matter who they are, be they immigrants or old-timers, Bedouin or kibbutzniks, devoutly religious or atheists. It is their sense of declining dignity that matters to them most.”
Singer has pity on fatally ill people who have no family or support group to stand by them in their time of need.
“There are only two decent hospices in the country, one in Jerusalem and other on the outskirts of Tel Aviv,” he says. “Together they have room for some 60 people. All the others who require help at such a time, and can’t be cared for at home, are doomed to spend their final hours on Earth in a hospital or nursing home, the personnel of which have neither the training nor the time to properly care for them.”
He hopes that one day a hospice can be established in Beersheva.
In the last seven years, Singer has aided 600 men and women in their final hours, which, he admits, has been very hard for him. That is the reason why he and the other members of his staff have therapy twice a month.
Singer is asked why he chose to enter such an emotionally draining field of medicine.
“The fatally ill can’t just be abandoned to their fate,” he replies. “Someone has to help and comfort them. That is a mission I have taken upon myself, and will continue with it as long as I possibly can.”