The Israel-Hamas War presented challenges for Tzafon Medical Center (Poriya), near Tiberias, its director, Dr. Noam Yehudai, said Thursday during The Jerusalem Post’s Rebuilding the North broadcast.
Shortly after the war broke out, “there was a challenge of taking care of tens of thousands of citizens who were evacuated from their homes,” he said.
“Many arrived at hotels surrounding Tzafon Medical Center, and we provided medical care for them for several months.”
Some of the evacuees have remained in the area and still rely on the center for their medical needs, he added.
The second difficulty was when the northern frontier became an active war zone, Yehudai said.
“This was the challenge of delivering medical care under fire, which is a situation we are not used to,” he said.
“For the first time in the history of our medical center, we had to go underground, and many of our departments were located underground for several weeks.”
Many staff members at Tzafon Medical Center arrived from areas that were under fire but had to reach the hospital, even if they had to park their cars at the side of the road and lie on the ground when the air-raid sirens sounded, he added.
Citizens living in the North will need a sense of security and stability to return, and much of that depends on the quality of medical services they will receive, Yehudai said.
Life after October 7
“Since [the October 7 [massacre], we’ve accelerated some of the processes inside the hospital regarding services that were previously unavailable to the citizens of the North,” he said.
“Two of them are probably the main issues that are the focus of the national healthcare system in Israel: physical rehabilitation and mental rehabilitation. Both of them are services that are lacking in Israel’s North.”
Fortunately, Tzafon Medical Center began planning the addition of these services before the war started, Yehudai said.
“Today, we can provide rehabilitation services in our newly opened Helmsley Rehabilitation Center, delivering all sorts of rehabilitation, [including for] pediatrics, soldiers, adults, and geriatric rehabilitation,” he said.
In addition, Tzafon Medical Center is building a separate mental health center on its campus, enabling it to serve the public with a general hospital, a rehabilitation center, and a mental health center.
“The issue of mental health and mental rehabilitation is probably the main issue that will stay with us in the coming years,” he said.
“This is why we have focused our efforts on accelerating the development of the mental-health facility. The community has a major role in mental health and resilience in general, and we are combining hands with the community and with the government.”
There is a shortage of rehabilitation and mental health professionals in Israel, Yehudai said, and it is even more acutely felt in the North.
To that end, Tzafon Medical Center is cooperating with the Health Ministry to promote a joint venture entitled Talent Tech to attract healthcare professionals to relocate to the North, he said.
“The distribution of resources is not equal, and the North deserves a much bigger part of the national resources,” Yehudai said.
This article was written in cooperation with Tzafon Medical Center.