“Looking after your mental health”

At the beginning of February, Dr. Efrat City Elifaz began her work as Director of Mental Health Services at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. Dr. City Elifaz will now be responsible for all the mental health services at the hospital, including the Pediatric and Adolescent Mental Health Clinic, the Adult Mental Health Clinic, Outpatient Mental Health Care, and the Hospitalization (open) Unit. Dr. City Elifaz replaces Dr. Lydia Lerner who retired from the position.

Dr. City Elifaz, a resident of Haifa, is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion in Haifa and is currently studying for her MPH (Master of Public Health) in Health Systems Policy and Administration at the University of Haifa. She completed her specialty certification at Shalvata Mental Health Care Center. She later worked as a senior physician at the Lev Hasharon Mental Health Center. From 2010, she was Director of the Psychiatric Emergency Department at Mazor Mental Health Center in Akko and was later appointed Director of Community Mental Health Services at Mazor, which included an Outpatient Mental Health Unit.

Dr. City Elifaz lectures at the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and has been widely involved in academia. She is a member of the central committee of the Israel Psychiatric Association and served as the Secretary General for the Israeli Society for Community Mental Health.

“As director, it is important for me that we serve as a center of academic and medical excellence for mental health,” said Dr. City Elifaz as she begins her work. “Accordingly, I view improving accessibility to mental health services within the community and using all the professional tools available to us, here at Hillel Yaffe, to help our patients as being extremely important.”