We are happy to inform you that at the request of Israel’s Ministry of Health we have closed the last open Covid 19 unit in Israel. The Ministry originally asked us to convert our Sheltered Underground hospital to a sterile Covid Isolation Unit at the height of the Covid pandemic. At one point, we had 120 people hospitalized in the unit. During the pandemic we cared for over 2,000 patients. Because of our expertise in respiratory care and treating the elderly, the Ministry of Health ordered Herzog to remain open as the only Covid unit in the country to be prepared in case there was a sudden peak in new cases.
Reviewing the minimum number of new cases throughout Israel, the Ministry decided there was no need to keep Herzog’s unit open any longer. The unit was closed yesterday.
The following article, which appeared in YNET, will give you more details.
We thank our staff for their dedicated and challenging care, always wearing their protective suits during their shifts to care for all the Covid patients hospitalized at Herzog.
We also thank all the donors who helped us purchase the huge volume of respirators and other medical equipment needed during the pandemic. Ironically, we are now at the point where we need to purchase additional respirators to replace those that were so heavily used.