Image: russiatoday.com |
Israel is one of the first countries to permit the use of medical marijuana. |
Twenty patients in an Israeli hospital have been treated with medical marijuana in the first program of its kind in the Mideast nation.
Head Nurse Ora Shamai of the pain management program at Sheba Medical Center in the town of Tel Hashomer recently drafted a formal protocol for administering cannabis to patients. The document has already been approved by the Health Ministry’s Dr. Yehuda Baruch, and is expected to soon win final approval from the hospital.
According to the protocol, if a patient needs marijuana, the doctor in charge of treatment will help secure the necessary permit from the Health Ministry. Patients who are able to walk will smoke their joints in the hospital’s smoking room, while bedridden patients will be allowed to smoke in private rooms, near an open window.
“We make it clear to the staff that smoking medical marijuana doesn’t endanger the medical staff on the wards,” Shamai said. “It does not harm those in the area via passive smoking.”