Exciting New Day Care Unit and Long-Overdue Conversion of Jerusalem 2nd Floor

In addition to Jerusalem's new Medical Retinal Unit, big changes are also about to occur in another area of the Jerusalem Hospital.  Thanks to support from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Bayt Mal al-Quds Agency, we are initiating a project to split the existing Women and Children’s Ward and also establish a state of the art Surgical Day Care Unit, which is in-keeping with modern ophthalmic practices. 

The Ministry of Health dictates that women and children should be accommodated in separate, designated wards, so this project has long been on our “wish-list” of capital developments. 

It is a doubly exciting initiative as the long-unused wing on the hospital’s second floor will be renovated and equipped once more.  This will then become an adult ward.  The right wing of the first floor will house a dedicated children’s ward and the left wing will become the Day Care Unit.

In recent years, ophthalmic surgery has seen a major shift away from inpatient care to day care.  This change is popular with both patients and clinicians and has been greatly boosted by the development of ultrasoniccataract surgery.  Day care is also increasingly used for procedures such as vitreo-retinal surgery. 

Patients are able to have minor operations in the unit under a local anaestheticand are then able to recover – still within the unit – before returning home on the same day.  This type of care also has a significant financial impact as it reduces running costs, while increasing throughput capacity.  The trend towards this style of surgery is likely to increase.

Bayt-Al-Mal translates literally to mean, “the house of money”.  Bayt Mal al-Quds is an agency of the OIC – after the United Nations, the largest inter-governmental organisationin the world – that extends assistance to Jerusalem based communities and institutions.    

The Hospital Group is extremely grateful to Bayt Mal al-Quds for its substantial support, and for making possible this exciting new development in our work.   

Written with the kind assistance of David Dahdal, Fundraising Manager, Jerusalem