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

Contents 1 History 2 Facilities 3 Administration 4 Departments 4.1 Wohl Surgical Operating Complex 4.2 Wilf Children's Hospital 4.3 Wilf Women and Infant Center 4.4 Jesselson Heart Center 4.5 Weinstock Family Department of Emergency Medicine 4.6 Orthopedics Department 4.7 Special units 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] 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.^[1]

[edit] Facilities

Shaare Zedek is located on an 11.5-acre (47,000 m²) campus between the neighborhoods of Bayit VeGan in the south and Ramat Beit HaKerem in the north, east of Mount Herzl in southwest Jerusalem. 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 Shabbat 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 campus, 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.

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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Administration

Shaare Zedek is a private hospital that relies on fundraising. The director general of the hospital is Prof. Jonathan Halevy. The hospital maintains public relations offices in ten countries, among them England and the United States.^[2] An interesting fact is that a high percentage of the hospital's physicians and other staff are immigrants, especially from English-speaking countries. The fact that the hospital treats a high number of American patients has enabled it to receive USAID funds.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Departments

[edit] Wohl Surgical Operating Complex

In June 2007, Shaare Zedek began several major construction efforts on its facilities, including the complete renovation of its surgical facilities, now known as the Wohl Surgical Operating Complex. The unit is spread over two floors in the hospital's underground section(in future). Nowadays this unit located in just one (second) floor.

[edit] Wilf Children's Hospital

Shaare Zedek is forming a separate unit for children, to be called Wilf Children's Hospital, consolidating the different departments involved in pediatric medicine. The unit is spread over two floors of the main hospital. Part of the Wilf Children's Hospital is the Glaubach Department of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. It also includes a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), as well as departments for pediatric neurology, cardiology, urology, nephrology, rheumatology, pulmonology, hematology, gastroenterology, infectious disease, and neonatology. Other units in the hospital which offer consultation and treatment to pediatric patients include ophthalmology, ear nose and throat, psychiatry, orthopedics, and neuropsychology.

[edit] Wilf Women and Infant Center

A third maternity department was opened in March 2009. Well over 1000 children are born in the hospital each month, on average; this figure is higher than that of all other Jerusalem hospitals combined. The center includes over 100 maternity beds.

[edit] Jesselson Heart Center

The entire tenth floor of the hospital has been converted to form the Jesselson Heart Center, which combines cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery. In 2008, it was the first hospital in Israel to replace heart valves via cardiac catheterization.^[3]

[edit] Weinstock Family Department of Emergency Medicine

Shaare Zedek's emergency department is the busiest in Jerusalem. It is capable of handling all emergencies, with the exception of neurosurgical ones. The department includes the Kennedy Leigh Trauma & Resuscitation Center. It includes a 14-bed observation and short stay unit, as well as a 5-bed chest pain unit. The new department, opened in the early 2000s, is more than three times larger than the previous one. It served about 60,000 patients in 2006.^[4]

[edit] Orthopedics Department

The department includes separate units for the spine, arthroscopy, hand surgery, joint reconstruction, and foot and ankle care. A total of 14 orthopedic surgeons form the core of the unit, which receives patients from around the country.

[edit] Special units

The hospital has several specialized units for specific diseases, namely Gaucher's disease and cystic fibrosis. In September 2008, the hospital treated Georgians wounded in that country's war with Russia.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• List of hospitals in Israel

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shaare Zedek Medical Center

• Official homepage
• Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation

Coordinates: 31°46′23″N 35°11′06″E / 31.77306°N 35.185°E / 31.77306; 35.185

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