By Marney Blom
Israel, a young, modern, 21st century nation, has not only thrived in spite of enormous challenges to its very existence, but has often been one step ahead of the rest of the world. Unlike any other nation, the tiny Zionist state copes with the daily threat of incoming rockets and with the hard reality that an estimated 200,000 missiles, amassed by Israel’s hostile neighbours, are pointed in its direction and have the capacity to reach every corner of the nation.
In 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, northern Israel’s largest medical facility, one of the most advanced emergency treatment hospitals in the world, came under direct rocket attack. During the 33 days of incoming Hezbollah missiles, the Rambam Health Care Campus continued to function, but with a new reality: Israeli hospitals had become the new front of militant Islamic terrorism. Dr. Yaron Bar Levi, chairman of the division of critical care medicine, recalls those days: “The hospital was under shelling of rockets … We were definitely not safe … And my unit is under a tin roof, so Katysha [rockets] can get in if we aren’t lucky.”
Inspired by Singaporean ingenuity, in 2008 the Israelis devised plans to construct the world’s largest fully-functioning hospital able to withstand modern conventional, biological and chemical warfare. How did they do it? They went underground.
Six years and 420 million shekels later the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital emerged – a sparkling new three-level, 1500 car underground parking lot that can be converted into a 2000-bed hospital in 72 hours. In a recent preparedness and logistics drill Rambam Hospital staff tested their efficiency at transferring large departments and medical units from the hospital’s main building to the adjacent underground emergency hospital. Chief of Nephrology, Dr. Suheir Assady, believes they are ready: “This is the first drill…. In case of need all my staff can work without pressure, without panic.”
The task of converting an underground parking lot into a functioning hospital under fire has unique challenges. It requires adjusting underground ventilation, installing temporary showers and toilets, activating electronics embedded in the parking lot walls, and setting up equipment in designated locations.
If all goes as planned, in times of emergency, the parking bays will accommodate a dialysis unit, delivery rooms, oncology patients, intensive care beds, complete operating rooms, x-ray machines and other medical infrastructures required to become a fully-functional underground hospital. The drill was successful, according to Dr. Rafael Beyar, general director and CEO of Rambam Health Care Campus. “We were able to show to ourselves that we could move the systems in a very short time from the main hospital to the underground hospital. All the systems, all the monitors, they are all functional, all including toilets and showers. This is very important to us to be able to show to ourselves that we can do it.… It is small scale at this time but it can certainly be scaled up.”
International health care specialists who came to observe the drill remarked on Israeli ingenuity. “If there is any great example of necessity being the mother of invention this is it,” said Jan Berger, president of TPG International Health Care Academy. “I think we are all standing right now in one of the most secure places on the face of the earth….. Like the rest of Israel, it is very operational and very practical.”
Despite the impressive potential of the emergency facility, no one at Rambam Health Care Campus has any desire to use it. But with the increasing threat presented by Israel’s neighbours, everyone is willing to be prepared.
Marney Blom is news director for the Acts News Network.
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