Since the beginning of the war, hospitals have been under the constant threat of imminent missile attack. As a result, Israel’s Home Front Command has instructed them to close their top-most floors to avoid any possible loss of life. The Ministry of Health and Israel’s Home Front Command have requested the Herzog Medical Center to expand its Sheltered Underground Emergency Hospital to begin to receive patients from the South and North. Some 30 patients on ventilators were admitted within the first three days of the war as hospitals at the front had to empty their intensive care units.
To meet the Israeli Government’s request, the Herzog Medical Center has begun its expansion work to include two additional Hospital wards (with an additional 100 beds, 50 beds in each ward). Expansion work consists of two areas: one area already completed and ready for patients, is on floor (-1) of the Samson Medical Pavilion and which previously housed store-rooms and logistics areas; and the second area, now underway, in on Floor (-2) of the Glassman Ambulatory Health Care Center. This is a more substantial project as it entails digging under the existing building. Each area will consist of a 50 hospital bed ward with accompanying support installations i.e. electricity, medical gases, air-conditioning and heating, showers as well as restrooms, and a nursing station. This is expected to take three to four months in order to convert into a first-rate medical care facility. When completed, these new wards will be in addition to the current 240 beds in the underground emergency hospital located on Floor 0 of the Samson Medical Pavilion.
With the war’s abatement, the new hospital ward will be converted into mental health clinics in order to accommodate the significant increase in patient flow in the field of mental health caused by this extreme period of crisis.