The need has never been greater. The hour is now.
Laniado hospital is located in Netanya, Israel. The region has seen a tumultuous 4 years of war and with a growing population, the hospital has expanded greatly to cater for their needs. However, when sirens wail, doctors, nurses and patients have 45 seconds to cease treatment and run to the nearest shelter as the hospital is not fortified. Often this is an impossible task as it means destabilizing a critical patient or premature baby or pausing in the midst of an operation. On Friday morning, the hospital moved the neonatal department to one of the only sheltered areas of the hospital and the internal medicine ward was moved to the underground carpark.
In response to recent events, the Laniado Hospital Fund launched the “Emergency Fortification Project”, with the main goal being the construction of a fortified hospital for emergency medicine. Today, Laniado Hospital has an emergency medicine department with 20 beds – the department is located in a building that has no protective infrastructure against missiles. When the war broke out, in 2023, over 90,000 inquiries came through the emergency department! The continuation of the emergency medicine department’s activity in such a crowded infrastructure triggered the director’s committee and the management of Laniado Hospital to enter into an intensive process of building a fortified hospital for emergency medicine. The sheltered hospital will make it possible to maintain functional continuity, in all the various emergencies, first and foremost rocket fire from Iran.
Many resources were invested in the meticulous planning of the hospital, in order to provide a clinical response to the approximately 500 thousand residents of the city of Netanya and the Sharon area, with for significant demographic growth in the coming years.
The planning team, led by the Dagan Mochli Architects and the Kidan Engineering and Project management, examined many issues of medical innovation, functional continuity, living spaces for caregivers, prevention of infections, protection to an extremely strict standard – the result is a project with an area of 4000 square meters, fully protected for any scenario and contains treatment areas for inpatients (50 inpatient beds + 10 ambulatory beds for short-term treatments), ambulatory patients, an orthopedic and surgical emergency room, and 4 trauma and ER stations, various imaging examination rooms (X-ray, ultrasound, CT, etc.). The protected emergency medicine hospital will contain 60 hospital beds, as well as an area for walking patients and of course very spacious living spaces for the concerned family members.
Construction of the protected emergency medicine hospital is a project of strategic value to the State of Israel.
The Ministries of Finance and Health are committed to the partial funding of the project, in its compliance with extremely strict construction standards. In addition, under the floor of the protected hospital for emergency medicine, a huge underground parking lot with 3 levels will be built that will be used as an emergency hospital for additional inpatient wards, so that the entire Laniado Hospital will be able to maintain continuity of work at any given moment. The project was designed with a futuristic view, taking into account the massive demographic growth projected by the year 2048.
The CEO of Laniado Hospital, Mr. Nadav Chen, said: “This project will be our flagship project in the years to come. I dare to state that this is a project with National importance. It is unfathomable that more than half a million residents of the State of Israel are left without a safe shelter whilst receiving emergency medical care in the north”, explains Chen. “I remind you that the construction of a protected hospital will allow patients, staff and attendants to concentrate on one simple task – saving lives and improving quality of life. We will do everything necessary to finish construction and be fully operational by the end of 2029”.
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This article was written in cooperation with Laniado hospital