Hillel Yaffe: Summing up last year and welcoming the next

HYMC: Increase in activity span in 2009-2010

The new hospital building

This week ends the previous Hebrew year, and ushers in the new 5771. Like in many other organizations, HYMC marks this as an excellent time to review all that has been accomplished during the past year, while we have attained many medical goals in which we have been introductory and innovative, as well as opening the doors to our new hospital building just last week.

First, the numbers…

HYMC's scope of activity continuously rises from year to year in various aspects. In 5770 we delivered over 4000 babies in HYMC, 190 of them were twins, and 15 triplets. In this concern the Ob-Gyn ward marks a considerable load in the past months. A welcome one, of course.

A 3% rise in ER requests for treatment – almost 100,000 patients a year. Besides this, we see a (positive) 6.5% decrease in traffic accident victims.

In 5769 the number of patients hospitalized in the various departments reached 69,000 – a 0.5% increase compared to the previous year, and a variable which is always rising. Over 10,000 surgical operations were performed in 5769 – and is expected to rise even more, due to the addition of 3 more newly equipped OR's in the new building.

Community care, research, education and state-of-the-art technology

HYMC is always on its toes – amongst the accomplishments were the Excellence Prizes for innovative research studies, initiating breakthrough treatments, providing new clinics and services, and introducing new technology for the benefit of the community:

• The pharmacy received the Excellence Prize for a special medication distribution system (unit dose), which improved patient care quantitatively and allowed allocating dose control.
• New services, such as the pediatric clinic, uro-gynecolgy service, ob-gyn research laboratories, parenting workshops in the neonatal ward, alternative medicine treatments for fertility, diabetes, and more. Also, a new Internet site, that will clearly and efficiently display the various services we have to offer.
• Use of new technology in the pacemaker field, orthopedic and vascular care – where we proved technological innovation and were the first in the country in this aspect. Also, we introduced modern equipment in the Nuclear Medicine department and the Heart Institute.
• In regard to research and education we conducted studies and held conferences that acclaimed global recognition, including Dr. Abu-Mouch's  - of Internal Medicine - study on Hepatitis C, Dr. Avinoam Ophir's – head of Ophthalmology -  research on edema of the retina, and an international conference on the integration of Obstetrics and Cardiology, organized by Dr. Avraham Shotan, head of the Cardiology Institute.
• HYMC conducted many conventions for the community in an assortment of fields, such as pregnancy and birth, child and neonatal development, ENT, diabetes, etc.

In the development field

Without a doubt, the cherry on top, and the best news, is truly the inauguration of the new hospital building, which had been anticipated for the last 10 years. The move began on September 1^st, and when concluded, will cover a bed capacity of 410-495. We are talking about a Rosh Hashana gift – not only to HYMC staff, but to the entire community. "Furthermore," says Dr. Oren, "we are actively involved in additional construction projects, such as rennovating the delivery rooms, the medical library, building new research lab's and refurnishing the original hospital building for the departments, in addition to providing a new internal medicine department".

"It is clear to us all,'" he emphasizes, "that we are now within a very rewarding period, which we were able to bring about with the help and cooperation of our wonderful personnel. My peers in management and myself are proud to be part of this team, and will continue to do all that is possible to provide the maximum treatment for the population in our area and in general."