Hospitals in northern Israel have begun to move their patients into protected areas, and are discharging those who are well enough to be released to their homes.
Elective and non-urgent surgeries have been canceled and outpatient clinics have been closed until further notice at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center and Emek Medical Center in Afula, as well as the Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Tiberias. Urgent care and oncological treatments are continuing.
Hospitals in the region have been rehearsing this scenario for months. All of the medical centers were ready when the order to move to protected areas was issued by Israel’s Health Ministry on Sunday.
Among the hospitals who received those orders was Haifa’s Rambam and Carmel medical centers, Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat (Safed), Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, HaEmek Medical Center in Afula, Baruch Padeh Medical Center outside Tiberias, and the Italian and English hospitals in Nazareth.
The underground parking lot at Rambam has been transformed into a secure hospital facility, including multiple operating rooms, a neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric unit, maternity ward and delivery rooms, all fully-equipped with stockpiled supplies and medications. Several hundred patients were being moved on Sunday from their wards to the fortified underground area at the medical center.
Bnei Zion Hospital in Haifa has also opened its underground emergency departments, and is relocating the maternity ward and premature infants who require incubators to those areas.
Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center has been on an emergency footing and operating in protected facilities since the war started; all medical activities, deliveries and surgeries have been taking place in secure areas for nearly a year.
