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New Gandel Rehab Center Welcomes First Patients

Gandel Rehab Center

New Gandel Rehab Center Welcomes First Patients

January 2024

The sounds of Hadassah representatives clapping and singing “Shalom Aleichem” welcomed the first patients into the Gandel Rehab Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus on January 15, part of a phased opening of the new facility.

These initial 12 patients in the War-Wounded Department will have the opportunity to heal using state-of-the-art equipment, including 1st Sgt. Yotam, who was the first to come through the doors.

“The first patients, all of whom were wounded in the war — heroes and heroines to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude — begin their journey in the new center in a designated department with advanced equipment and systems that were built and installed especially for them,” said Prof. Yoram Weiss, director general of the Hadassah Medical Organization.

The Gandel Rehab Center will offer a host of special treatments along with physical and occupational therapy, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and respiratory and orthopedic rehabilitation. There will be a PTSD center and rehabilitation for neurological problems caused by brain, spinal cord and nervous system injuries. When construction is complete, the 323,000-square-foot eight-story center, named for John Gandel and Pauline Gandel of the Gandel Foundation in Melbourne, Australia, will care for 10,000 patients annually. The center will feature 140 in-patient beds — a 250 percent increase for the Hadassah Medical Organization — and an out-patient clinic able to serve 250 patients a day.

Read the full article HERE

Read more about CHW and Hadassah Hospital
Read more about CHW’s ONE DAY AT A TIME campaign supporting the Gandel Rehab Center

War caught Israeli rehab hospitals unprepared to handle number of wounded

Health authorities in Israel are making a major push to meet the demand for expanded facilities and treatment, but the question remains whether it can all be done in time.

“COVID showed us our deficiencies in internal medicine. [The war] has highlighted our deficiencies in rehabilitation and mental health treatment,” Dr. Tamar Elram, director of the Hadassah Medical Center’s Mount Scopus hospital in Jerusalem, told The Times of Israel. Even before the war broke out on October 7, when Hamas launched a savage attack on southern Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people amid acts of horrific brutality and taking 240 hostages to Gaza, Israel lagged behind other OECD countries in terms of spaces for patients in rehabilitation hospitals and centers.

Read more about Hadassah Medical Center in this story HERE

Hadassah Women Group Slams Red Cross’ Failure to Treat Israeli Hostages Held Captive in Gaza by Hamas

Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, sent a strongly worded missive to Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric on Wednesday, criticizing her organization’s failure to visit and treat Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza by Hamas. Spoljaric is currently visiting Israel for the first time since the war broke out. In their letter, Haddassah Women wrote: “We welcome the visit, but at the same time it is important for us to emphasize that your visit in Israel is meaningless if you do not visit and treat the Israeli hostages in Gaza. We demand of you – fulfill the role for which you were established and take care of the hostages now, before it is too late.”

Read the full article HERE

Call to Action: World WIZO Chairperson Anita Friedman calls on WIZO federations worldwide to appeal to their governments to help Israel bring our hostages home.

World WIZO are calling on their international federations and affiliates to contact local government leaders and anyone of influence in your community and country to call for the immediate release of hostages. “We strongly implore all people of good conscience to take immediate action and do everything in your power to put an end to these atrocities that includes the violent, cruel and inhumane capture and torture of innocent civilians, from numerous nationalities. This is not just a crime committed against the people of Israel; but the global community of humanity as well. We will not rest until we have them returned”, says Anita Friedman, Chairperson of World WIZO. Among those being held captive are women and young girls who have been sexually violated and others who have been injured, some of them critically, and babies and elderly who need urgent medical attention and lifesaving medicines. “It is vital that the international community demand and continue to pressure international aid organizations, human rights organizations, local and federal government to do everything in their power to exert as much pressure and demand as possible,” says Friedman.

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