Barely 11% of Ethiopian Jewish students reach university in Israel, compared to 42% of their counterparts in the general population. This worrying statistic is behind a ground-breaking agreement between Hadassah Australia and the United Israel Appeal. Read more
What do a Romanian medical student, a Palestinian child, and a young adult from the Dominican Republic have in common? The Hadassah Medical Center, through its innovative, determined, and resourceful physicians, gave them all back their lives. Read more
JERUSALEM — To many, the term “Middle East peace” represents the impossible dream, if not the ultimate contradiction in terms. But there is a place in the region where Jews, Muslims, and Christians meet peacefully every day on the basis of shared concerns and a sense of humanity. It’s not a country, though it is older than many of the nations in the vicinity. Nor is it a mirage, though the desert is within view. It’s the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Read more
A breakthrough Israeli study published in the European Journal of Pediatrics shows that group therapy delivered by a medical clown to young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) led to significant improvement over time in word production, play reciprocity and amount of social smiles as compared with other interventions. Read more
Sima Levy gave birth unexpectedly at home during the 26th week of a troubled pregnancy. The baby, weighing just 1.9 pounds (861 grams), was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. It took six months before the newborn, whom she named Rivky, was finally able to leave the hospital. “I came to understand that...she was a baby with chronic and complex medical challenges.” Mrs. Levy says. Read more
Hadassah Medical Organization opened a new pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Unit at its hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. The unit, in the Sharett Institute of Oncology, was established and equipped thanks to a $4.75 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. Read more
As director of the Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus Emergency Medicine Department, Dr. Salameh explains that the greater the challenge, the more motivated she is. As the mother of three young children under six, and married to a physician, she attributes part of her ability to juggle her demanding life to the ability of women to multitask. Throughout her journey to become a physician, many people told her she would not be able to do it. But, as she says, she views obstacles as opportunities. Read more
Prof. Sigal Sviri is the director of the unit at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem where frequently a patient’s organs are failing all at once, and the challenge is to stabilise everything. It’s the unit that cares for patients with severe, complex medical problems – the Medical Intensive Care Unit, known as the MICU. Read more
As director of the Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus Emergency Medicine Department, Dr Salameh explains that the greater the challenge, the more motivated she is. As the mother of three young children under six, and married to a physician, she attributes part of her ability to juggle her demanding life to the ability of women to multitask. Read more
The mix of Jewish patients, Arab doctors, Arab patients, Jewish doctors, and therapists who speak unexpected Hebrew or Arabic makes me think peace is possible Read more
The majority of people with Lou Gehrig's Disease, also commonly known as MND in Australia, only live for about five years after their initial diagnosis. But famed physicist Stephen Hawking lived with the disease for more than 50 years. One reason, according to new research, might have been his positive outlook on life. Read more
In the recovery room of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, an 18 month old toddler born in Syria has recently been lying. After a complex surgery, the life of a toddler born with a heart defect was saved against all odds, thanks to the resourcefulness of Israeli doctors who decided to take the initiative, following his parents' arduous journey - who fled the Syrian civil war to Jordan, until they arrived in Jerusalem despite difficulties and the great fear to fight for their son's life. Read more
With Ethiopian Israelis typically scoring 25 percent lower than the general Jewish population, Israel’s psychometric test is an impassable barrier for the majority of the youth of this community of 135,000. Only 11 percent of 22- to 35-year-old Ethiopian Israelis have an undergraduate degree, compared with 42 percent of all Israeli Jews of the same age. Read more
Hadassah Australia will host the 2nd International Conference on Trauma and Mental Health 6 – 8 September, 2020. The 2017 inaugural conference, the first of its type, was hailed an outstanding success. Attracting many of the world’s leading mental health practitioners and researchers to Israel, it also resulted in the sharing of important information on issues around trauma, mental health and PTSD. The 2020 conference theme is "The Impacts of Trauma and Adversity: Challenged and Innovations" Read more
The world marvelled at Israel’s daring as it brought thousands of Ethiopians stranded in their war-torn country to Israel. Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991) were emblematic of Israel’s commitment to Jews in distress. But recent events have overshadowed these achievements as Ron Finkel wrote in an Opinion Piece published in the Australian Jewish News. Hadassah Australia has created a nursing fellowship for young Ethiopians, raising funds for 20 scholarships. Read more
Hadassah has been described as an “island of calm in a sea of chaos”. That has never been more apparent than in recent weeks as Israel confronts an Ethiopian community enraged by the tragic death of a 19-year-old teenager, shot by an off-duty policeman under controversial circumstances. It is tearing apart the social fabric of Israel, at a time when the country can least afford it. Read more
Few people are in the league of Professor Esti Galili-Weisstub at Hadassah Hospital. Esti works in the inexact field of damaged minds. She visited Melbourne and Sydney during May, a matter of weeks after terrorists in Gaza sent more than 400 rockets into Israel to speak on the theme of ‘Terror, Trauma, Transformation’, and how the Second Intifada (2000 – 2005) helped to drive a new awareness at Hadassah in the treatment of vulnerable children and adolescents. Read more
You are invited to participate in the forthcoming conference organized by the Department of Pediatrics and the Center for Children with Chronic Diseases at Hadassah Hospital. The international conference is about children dealing with chronic diseases. ‘The Challenged Child’ (child health, development and welfare) will be held in Jerusalem from December 2 – 4, 2019. Read more
Hadassah Researchers Adapt a Text-Messaging Program to Help IDF Soldiers Kick the Tobacco Habit. Read more
Giving birth in a first-world country in the 21st century should be safer than at any other time in human history. By contrast, complications should be more easily overcome given the advances in western medicine. This was certainly the expectation of ‘Malka’, who at 34 was expecting her fifth child. But at her 30 weeks’ ultrasound, the medical resident at a hospital near Tel Aviv was suddenly confronted by the unthinkable. Read more
"Hadassah got it under control." The number of liver transplants at Hadassah has doubled from 12 in 2016 to 24 last year and will likely more than triple this year. Hadassah’s success rates are on par with the best worldwide: a one-year survival rate of 89 percent and 75 percent after five years, according to a 2016 data report from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, a United States government agency. Read more
Sexual abuse, especially when repressed, can profoundly impact physical and mental health. Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, sleep disturbance, eating disorders and self-harm are among its fallouts—all of which are treated at Bat Ami. Read more
Bespoke medicine has long been practiced at Hadassah Hospital. It comes from a tradition where the patient is the focus of the medical and nursing staff; where successful medical outcomes can require more than the traditional approach. This happened recently at Hadassah when spine specialists used an innovative, minimally invasive approach to correct scoliosis in Elia, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome. Read more
Pioneering treatment at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem is giving a man from Gaza who suffers from a very rare, painful, and incurable skin condition known as ‘Tree Man Syndrome’ a chance to live a normal life. Read more