Seeing green

Employees of HYMC planting trees in honor of Tu B’Shvat“Thinking green” is no trivial matter within a complex system like the health care system, which has a multitude of requirements and measures of its own, alongside limited standardization and a lack of resources. By the end of the 1980s, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center had already started becoming ecologically minded, and the process continued to gain strength over the years. This week the hospital was awarded an official Certificate of Appreciation by the Standards Institution of Israel to mark a decade of environmental work at Hillel Yaffe.

Dr. Mickey Dudkiewicz and Dr. Amnon Ben Moshe receive the Certificate of Appreciation from the CEO of the Standards Institution of Israel, Dr. Gilad Golub, at a ceremony at Hillel Yaffe

The first project was shifting from heavy and inexpensive fuel oil for heating to more expensive, but cleaner diesel,” said HYMC’s Administrative Director, Dr. Amnon Ben Moshe. “Later, at the beginning of the 1990s, the hospital set out on a unique project to establish a thermosolar system for the supply of steam and hot water in order to save energy and promote a clean environment. This provided the hospital with 'friendly’ energy, while lowering its costs.”

Throughout the years, work procedures and various projects related to environmental protection have been implemented to be as environmentally friendly as possible. In 2018, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center raised the bar on all matters related to environmental protection and green building. “We developed advanced systems that use special technologies, some of which are true breakthroughs in water, electricity, construction and infrastructures, including an advanced system for monitoring the drinking and dialysis water, an osmosis system to create treated water without brine, installation of resilient plastic pipes and a backup system to generate electricity powered by hydrogen fuel cells - the first in Israel and worldwide, which provides backup for departments, including ICU, stroke, catheterization, and more,” said HYMC Engineer Ronen Edry.

Employees of HYMC planting trees in honor of Tu B’Shvat

As previously mentioned, in a ceremony held this week at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, the CEO of the Standards Institution of Israel, Dr. Gilad Golub, presented a certificate of appreciation to HYMC Director General, Dr. Mickey Dudkiewicz and Dr. Amnon Ben Moshe. At the end of the ceremony, the participants and medical center employees gathered outside the NICU Building to hold the hospital's traditional annual Tu B’Shvat planting ceremony, which capped the “green” event which will become part and parcel of the hospital’s history.