The dilemma confronting long-term respiratory patients in general hospitals throughout Israel is significant. Generally, respiratory patients requiring long-term respiratory support have to be maintained on a respirator. General acute-care hospitals have serious difficulty in providing beds for such long-term care patients because they are dedicated to acute and intensive care.
Herzog Medical Center’s Chronic Respiratory Care Division is the largest, most extensive and most experienced chronic respiratory care department in Israel with more than 250 beds, and among the leading facilities in its field in the entire world. It allows Israel’s other general hospitals to continue to focus on providing acute and intensive care by freeing up crucial bed space for these long-term respiratory care patients. The Chronic Respiratory Care Division treats patients from infancy to old age and is divided into three main wards: a Chronic Respiratory Care Ward for Infants and Children (ages 2 – 13 years old), one for Adolescents and Young Adults (ages 14 – 25), and one ward (comprised of four departments) for adults and geriatric patients. As a result of the expertise that Herzog’s hospital staff developed, many of the patients who previously had been “given up” for “lost” by medical services have been rehabilitated and weaned from the respirators, enabling them to return home or, at least, to “graduate” to a nursing department.
Hospitalized patients in the Chronic Respiratory Care Division represent a cross section of etiologies, ranging from acute events (such as anoxic brain damage) to slowly progressive diseases (such as ALS). Each patient has his or her own unique characteristics and issues, and family members are often affected by the patient’s condition. The Department’s staff comprises an interdisciplinary team of professionals – doctors, nurses, social workers, paramedical professionals, and psychological trauma therapists – who address the varied needs of each patient and their family.
In 2004, Herzog Hospital undertook to establish a Children’s Chronic Respiratory Care Department. This was based on our experience and success in treating older patients with chronic respiratory problems, including supporting them for extended periods of time on respirators and weaning them from breathing support.
Patients in this department include adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 25, from all religions and sectors. They arrive in Herzog from intensive care units in other hospitals, due to neurological/genetic diseases, or else coping with severe brain damage and require ongoing respiratory support.
Herzog’s Long Term Respiratory Care Department for Adults is the largest of its kind in the country, providing care for over 200 adult patients who are unable to breath on their own.