Sha'arei Tzedek Medical Center

The Shaare Zedek Medical Center ( _he. מרכז רפואי שערי צדק, "Merkaz Refu'i Sha'arei Tzedek") (lit. "Gates of Justice") is a major hospital in Jerusalem, Israel.

The hospital has 500 beds and treats over 250,000 patients a year in its in-patient and out-patient facilities. The hospital operates in keeping with Jewish law, utilizing various technologies developed to avoid violating the Sabbath as much as possible. As terrorist attacks in Jerusalem reached a peak in 2001-2004, Shaare Zedek treated more victims than any other hospital in Israel. The hospital's trauma unit has become a model for emergency medicine and handling large-scale mass casualty incidents.

The hospital maintains public relations offices in ten countries, among them England and the United States. [http://www.szmc.org.il/index.asp?id=102&top=1]

Facilities

Shaare Zedek is located on an 11.5 acre campus in Bayit VeGan, across from Mount Herzl in central Jerusalem. The hospital campus, which was completed in 1979, consists of ten interconnected buildings with the central structure being a ten-story building which houses the in-patient departments. The bottom three floors are located underground so as to allow the hospital to continue to operate even during war time under the threat of missile strike. The Department of Emergency Medicine, the Department of Surgery, the Pharmacy and critical supply areas are all located in this underground portion and other areas of the hospital can be evacuated to this portion when necessary.

In June 2007, Shaare Zedek began several major construction efforts on its facilities including the complete renovation of its surgical facilities and building the Wilf Children's Hospital. A third maternity department is also slated for construction.

Shaare Zedek is well known for its extensive decontamination facilities capable of responding to terrorist attacks. The hospital acts as the on-call facility for the entire Jerusalem area to respond to chemical warfare attacks. Sha'arei Tzedek's decontamination facilities served as an inspiration for New York's largest similar facility at the New York Downtown Hospital.fact|date=May 2008

Administration

Shaare Zedek is a private hospital that relies on fundraising. The director general of the hospital is Prof. Jonathan Halevy.

History

Shaare Zedek was the first large hospital in Jerusalem. After the Ottoman Turks gave permission in the 1890s, and with funding from European donors, the hospital was built on Jaffa Road, two miles (3 km) outside the Old City. Its opening ceremony took place on January 27, 1902. Dr. Moshe Wallach was the director from then until 1947. Schwester Selma lived in the hospital and cared for abandoned children. The building in Bayit Vegan was inaugurated in 1980. [http://www.szmc.org.il/exhibition/history2.html]

See also

*List of hospitals in Israel

References

External links

* [http://www.szmc.org.il/ENG/ Official homepage]
* [http://www.hospitalwithaheart.ca/purpose/patients.html/Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation]