Greetings Friends,

We will soon be celebrating Passover, a special time of family and friends where we rejoice in the importance of freedom, Jewish freedom from Egyptian slavery in biblical times and in gratitude of our own freedom. But Passover also signifies the beginning of spring, a time of new beginnings, and a reminder of the significant Jewish tradition of helping others who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Here at Rabin Medical Center, thanks to our ongoing partnerships with our friends abroad and in Israel we are able to continue providing advance life saving medical care to all citizens of Israel. Having just returned from a beautiful event on behalf of the hospital hosted by Claude and Al Mann, I an excited by our growing support in Los Angles and look forward to a greater partnership with this vital community.

Over a year ago we begin the construction of the new Jusidman Emergency and Trauma Center, a multi-level project of great magnitude, will take several years to complete and will serve more than 160,000 people annually.

This new center is being planned according to Israel’s Home Front Command’s strict emergency readiness requirements, and will include advanced diagnostic and life-saving equipment to cope with large scale disasters. Its plans also take into consideration meeting needs for infection control and include specially protected isolation rooms for contaminating patients. The majority of the work over the past year was clearing and preparing the site and the construction of support pillars around the entire surface. Now the foundation will be built setting the stage for the constitution of the underground parking floors, the emergency and trauma floor.

We also continue to launch new initiatives, including an especially crucial project to enlarge the Institute of Pulmonary Medicine, the foremost facility in Israel for treatment of lung diseases, which works in collaboration with the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Israel’s only lung transplant program. The present Institute is only 500 sq.m yet treats over 12,000 patients annually. Extremely overcrowded, the patients suffer from lack of privacy and dignity and conditions which could be hazardous to their health. Rabin Medical Center has allocated a larger space for the Pulmonary Institute which can accommodate the increased patient-load and provide our patients with the best possible life-saving care in suitable, well-planned facilities with state of the art equipment. This project will cost over 3 million dollars and is in addition to others facilities which have urgent needs, and the necessity to purchase new equipment in order to continue providing the best medical care in all domain of medicine.

These projects all need the generous support of our friends around the globe and in Israel. We must continue to provide the gift of life, which remains one of the greatest gifts that we have to give.

Happy Passover to you and your families,

Dr. Eyran Halpern
CEO, Rabin Medical Center