The competition for patients and prestige between Hadassah-University Medical Centers and Shaare Zedek Medical Center has been an ongoing rivalry for decades.
But the race is no longer really necessary, as both medical facilities are brimming with patients as the surrounding population grows. To meet the burgeoning health demands, the government has decided to expand the existing medical centers and dismissed plans to construct any new general hospitals in the capital.
To that end, Shaare Zedek has received permission from the state to double its capacity, with a 20-story tower to be built over its existing outdoor parking lot; Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem has been busily refurbishing its original round building.
On its two campuses, Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus, Hadassah’s medical centers have more than 1,300 beds, 31 operating rooms, and nine special intensive care units, in addition to the five schools for medical professions.
Shaare Zedek is the largest multidisciplinary medical center in the city, offering advanced services in a wide array of specialties, treating over a million patients annually in its 30 inpatient departments and 70 outpatient clinics and units. Its obstetrics department delivers 21,000 babies annually, making it the busiest in the world.
“You can’t fit a pin in all the hospitals,” said Prof. Jonathan Halevy, Shaare Zedek’s president, implying that these medical institutions are running at full capacity.
How will Shaare Zedek expand?
“The new building will cover 120,000 square meters and will cost about NIS 2.5 billion,” added Halevy, who served as Shaare Zedek’s director-general from 1988, when there were 300 beds, to over 1,000 in 2019. “We are working hard to raise money from donations, but the government has committed itself to match funds, perhaps close to 50% of what we raise.”
In addition, it was decided that Shaare Zedek would integrate the Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center into its facilities. The public psychiatric hospital was established in 1951 between the Givat Shaul and Har Nof neighborhoods, on the grounds of the former Deir Yassin Arab village.
Kfar Shaul could have been taken over by the nearby Herzog Medical Center, a psychiatric, chronic care, and rehabilitation facility. Dr. Ya’alov Haviv, director-general of Herzog, commented that he would have been happy to have incorporated Kfar Shaul into his medical institution. However, the government now has a policy of integrating psychiatric institutions with general hospitals.
THE SHAARE ZEDEK tower, which will not obstruct Bayit Vagan residents’ view, will be built in two phases. The first will open in about six and a half years, with the lowest nine stories functional. The facade of the whole tower will be built, and the 11 upper floors will function several years later. A helicopter pad on the roof will receive emergency patients.
Halevy noted that the current departments, which already offer all medical services, will be expanded and upgraded with the new tower. “We will have an entirely new emergency department with all the newest equipment. We expect we will deliver 30,000 babies a year when the building is complete,” he predicted.
“Shaare Zedek will be one of the three largest medical centers in Israel – quite a long way for the 20-bed hospital that opened at the western entrance to the city in 1902.”
Although there is currently a significant shortage of physicians and nurses in Israel, Halevy said they will be replaced as new physicians will graduate and specialize. The decision to allow colleges, and not just universities, to open nursing schools will also increase the pool of nurses.
Halevy is in a position to know: He was the chairman of the team of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, which examined the readiness of three new medical schools: Reichman University, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and the University of Haifa.
THE GOVERNMENT’S decision to approve the tower was announced, appropriately, on Jerusalem Day by Health Minister Uriel Busso and Jerusalem Affairs and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush. They said the step is being taken “to strengthen the hospitalization system and ensure that physical and mental treatment will be provided at the same hospital.”
The decision is a “major milestone in the development of the medical center, which is a central medical anchor for Jerusalem and the entire central region,” Shaare Zedek director-general Prof. Ofer Merin told In Jerusalem. “The doubling of capacity will significantly improve the quality of treatment and provide advanced and humane medicine to hundreds of thousands of additional patients from Jerusalem and all over the country.
“Physical and psychological health are linked. One affects the other. Today, we have only ambulatory psychiatry care, but with the new tower we will have inpatient beds as well,” he said.
“The population of Jerusalem is expected to double by 2045, so if medical centers in the capital don’t expand, many patients will not be treated. We thought of building the tower about five years ago. People live longer, and that means they need more medical treatment. We also perform surgery and other treatments on people in their 90s that [we] were fearful of doing before.”
Bosso said that the tower will serve “as a lever to improve medical services for the city’s residents and strengthen the health infrastructure in the capital.”
Porush added: “This significant decision reflects the strategic importance of Jerusalem in the areas of health and services for residents. It is very good news for the millions of residents of greater Jerusalem; it will improve the quality of life here and deepen health equity in Israel.”