Tag: Shaare Zedek

New role, familiar face

Ilan Pilo, left, and Rafi Yablonsky of the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation. (photo from CSZHF)

In Jerusalem, Yad Vashem stands as the foremost memorial centre to the Holocaust, dedicated to the millions of Jews murdered during the Shoah. Across the street, as if in defiant answer to the past, is one of the world’s busiest maternity centres, where 22,000 newborns meet the world every year, strengthening the future of the Jewish people. 

The maternity section is just one of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre’s many specialized departments, advancing health not only at the start of life but all through the lifespan of patients. Shaare Zedek is home to an emergency preparedness and disaster response centre. It offers a one-stop multidisciplinary and comprehensive diagnostic breast health centre. There are departments focusing on heart health, medical genetics, digestive diseases, oncology and an array of other specializations – more than 30 in-patient and 70 out-patient departments in all. The hospital sees a million patients annually and has 1,000 beds. Located in the centre of west Jerusalem, it is, among so much else, a teaching and research facility.

Western Canadians will likely be hearing more about this particular facility as the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation has just opened its first office in this part of the country. But, while the organization may be a newcomer as a physical presence in Vancouver’s Jewish community, it will be a familiar face sharing the Shaare Zedek story.

Ilan Pilo, who served as shaliach (emissary) and regional executive director of Jewish National Fund of Canada from 2013 to 2021, has returned from Israel as the Western Canada executive director for the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation.

“I was thrilled and honoured to be offered the opportunity to be the first to launch the Western office in Canada,” Pilo said.

During his time back in Israel, Pilo served as principal of a postsecondary trades and skills school and, most recently, ran the campaign for Yariv Fisher, who won an upset victory to become mayor of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. Municipal elections across Israel were delayed twice due to the war and, almost immediately after seeing his candidate elected, Pilo jumped on a plane and headed for Canada, spending 10 days in Toronto orienting to his new role before landing in Vancouver in March.

The hospital is 120 years old and was founded to ensure medical adherence to halachah (Jewish law), providing appropriate care for Orthodox Jews in the pre-state era. While it still provides everything religious Jews need, including minyanim, it is also, Pilo said, a “safe zone” for all people, regardless of ethnicity, nationality or religion. 

“When you look at the population in Jerusalem, you see that there are one million people – 300,000 of them are ultra-Orthodox, 400,000 are Arabs and the rest are, let’s say, secular Jews,” Pilo said. “It’s the most interesting and complex mix of people.”

That diversity is reflected not only in the patients but in the doctors and staff, Pilo said.

Right now, the hospital’s specialists in trauma are dealing with soldiers and civilians injured in the war. Since Oct. 7, Shaare Zedek has treated 300 wounded civilians and more than 700 Israel Defence Forces soldiers. In addition, hospitals in the north and the south of Israel have transferred 60 of their neonatal intensive care unit patients out of conflict regions to Shaare Zedek, where the NICU is housed in completely sheltered areas.

Rafi Yablonsky, national executive director of the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, said he and the foundation’s board decided to expand operations across Western Canada because of the region’s philanthropic and Zionistic reputation. 

“We hope that more Canadians learn about the transformative and world-leading work of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem,” he said. “Our goal is to grow our donor base and volunteer base with business and philanthropic leaders out West.”

This is not the first time Pilo and Yablonsky have worked together.

“Ilan and I were colleagues when we worked at JNF Canada together,” he said. “I witnessed firsthand how Ilan is highly skilled as a world-class fundraiser, also motivating groups of volunteers to do their part in our community.

“Shaare Zedek is a public hospital that is privately funded,” said Yablonsky, “and it receives very limited support from the Israeli government to upgrade equipment and technology, develop groundbreaking international research and ensure state-of-the-art medical training is available to staff. As such, the hospital relies heavily on the generosity of donors around the world to supplement $30 million needed annually.”

For more information, visit hospitalwithaheart.ca. 

Responding to emergencies

Israeli field hospital personnel look after those injured in the earthquake in Nepal. (photo by Sam Amiel)

Cardiac surgeon Lt.-Col. (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin is deputy director general of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre and lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He heads the Israel Defence Forces Home Front Command’s field hospital, and was part of the IDF’s relief efforts in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, in Japan after the 2011 tsunami, in the Philippines after the 2013 typhoon and in Nepal after the earthquake in April this year. With various colleagues, he has written about these experiences, as well as about the provision of trauma care at Shaare Zedek.

From the New England Journal of Medicine, March 2010: Within two days of the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, Israel had sent “a military task force consisting of 230 people” who “landed in Port-au-Prince 15 hours after leaving Tel Aviv and began to deploy immediately…. In its 10 days of operation, the field hospital treated more than 1,100 patients.”

From the Journal of the American Medical Association, July 2015: After the earthquake in Nepal in April 2015, the IDF sent a medical team of 126, and the field hospital was “deployed as a stand-alone facility 82 hours after the earthquake.” Over 11 days, “we treated 1,668 patients, performed 85 operations and delivered eight babies.”

From the Lancet, April 2015: “There were 11 terror attacks in Jerusalem, Israel, between October–December 2014 alone. Two of the injured terrorists arrived at our institution and, following standing triage protocol, we prioritized one terrorist to undergo surgery first since his medical condition was more critical than that of the victims.”

photo - Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz with Dr. Ofer Merin when Merin was in Vancouver in August
Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz with Dr. Ofer Merin when Merin was in Vancouver in August. (photo by Karen James)

These are but a few examples of the work Merin and his colleagues do, and the challenges they face. When Merin was in Vancouver recently, he shared some of his experiences and discussed the ethical issues surrounding trauma care. He spoke to the Jewish community on Aug. 20 and to physicians in the trauma unit at Vancouver General Hospital the day prior.

Dr. Rick Schreiber – professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, director of the B.C. Pediatric Liver Transplant Program and president-elect of the Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver – was the catalyst for Merin’s visit. Yet his connection to Merin was not, as it first might appear, through his work as a fellow medical professional, but through Merin’s wife, Ora.

Schreiber was on an adult March of the Living mission earlier this year that was organized by the Montreal Jewish community.

“I’m originally from Montreal. I’ve been out here about 20 years,” said Schreiber, who is very involved with Jewish causes in Israel, overseas and elsewhere, including here with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. On this recent mission, he explained in a phone interview with the Independent, all of the tours and activities in Israel were organized by Ora Merin and her company,

Giant Leaps. “I was very impressed with how the program was laid out for the Israel aspects of the mission and the level of the people [we met] and the things that we did. We got to places that most people wouldn’t get to….”

Ofer Merin attended the mission’s closing dinner with his wife. With medicine in common, he and Schreiber started talking, and Merin’s involvement with the Israel Defences Forces disaster response team came up.

The next day, as Schreiber was leaving Israel, he saw Ora Merin again. She told Schreiber that her husband had left for Nepal, which had just experienced an earthquake. “I got to tell you,” said Schreiber, “within six hours, they had up and going a launch – and they bring everything.… It’s amazing what the Israelis do to be first responders, and they are recognized around the world as being the best. They get there very quickly and they set up all the units, like an intensive care and operating tents and all this kind of stuff, and triage, and get rescue things going long before other countries are even getting their finances together.”

“It’s amazing what the Israelis do to be first responders, and they are recognized around the world as being the best. They get there very quickly and they set up all the units, like an intensive care and operating tents … long before other countries are even getting their finances together.”

During that conversation, Ora mentioned that their family (she and Ofer have four adult children) was going to be in the United States – Ofer has a brother in Seattle – in the summer, and Schreiber suggested they think about coming up to Vancouver on that trip. He said that it would be good for her, because of her travel agency, to meet with Federation, which runs missions to Israel, and maybe her husband could give a talk on his work. “So, that’s how that all started, back in Israel, back last May,” he said.

In addition to the community meetings and talk, Schreiber also organized for Ofer Merin to speak at VGH. “There is a big group of trauma people at VGH, and they jumped on this because they had heard of him and they knew of him, and we organized for him to give rounds…. There was very good attendance at that rounds, and he talked about what he does. But he didn’t talk about all the people they deal with and how they set up, he talked about a lot of ethical things, like how do you decide to save this person versus that person – you only have limited space to save people.”

Merin spoke at VGH about treating such large numbers of injured after a natural disaster, and about handling the stress of that, said Schreiber. “The next thing he talked about, the ethics. You’re not able to provide the same level of care as you’re accustomed to, like we supply for trauma people in Vancouver, we can’t give the same level of care … you’ve got to treat people and turn them over quickly, so you can treat the next person.”

Merin also discussed how, at Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, they have to treat victims of terror attacks, including, at times, the terrorist. Of the victims and the perpetrator(s), who do you take care of first? At Shaare Zedek, Merin said, such decisions are made on the basis of triage, who is the most badly injured.

The Independent caught up with Merin by email after his Vancouver visit.

JI: What interested you in cardiac medicine/surgery versus other specialties? Did you always want to be in medicine?

OM: My decision to go into medicine was relatively late, in my early 20s, not something I was born with. My decision to go into cardiac surgery, I guess, was based first on my “nature” to choose something surgical – more adrenalin, very quick results. Cardiac surgery in specific is a great combination of both surgery and the need of good clinical and physiology understanding.

JI: The burnout rate for doctors in general is quite high. It must be higher for trauma physicians. How do you (and/or your colleagues) manage the stress?

OM: I would divide [my response]. There are things done on the group level – discussions, sharing, etc. Especially these days in Jerusalem, there is an extra challenge – dealing with treatment of terror victims, and many times treatment of the terrorists themselves…. We have a psychologist who is doing some group work especially with the ER people and the intensive care unit. And, on the personal level, everyone has to find his ways to vent. I jog almost every day. For me, it’s a good way to relax. In missions abroad, I write every day. Also a great way to vent.

JI: The enormity of being part of a disaster-response team is almost beyond comprehension for anyone who has not had the experience. If it’s possible to outline a general order of events, from the time a natural disaster hits to when the Israeli unit is on the ground in another country providing care, could you please share the main points?

OM: One of the important things is to work in parallel. We bring in the team way before there is a full understanding of the scale of the disaster, so we are prepared before there is a governmental decision to send a team. Once a decision is taken, we are prepared to leave. We send immediately a small forward team, which can report back, and prepare whatever is needed for deployment. We drill every year, so we maintain a high level of preparedness.

JI: In a couple of articles, you mention collaboration/integration with local facilities in a disaster-response situation. What types of factors enter the decision of where the Israeli unit fits into the overall aid effort?

OM: To be honest, in the last natural disasters around the globe, Israel is almost always the largest and first to be on ground. Therefore, we communicate with the local health providers and make a mutual decision where it is best to deploy.

The decision if to deploy as a self-sufficient unit or to operate (like in the Philippines) as an integrated unit is based mainly on the question if the local services are still functional. If they are, it is many times better to assist them and not “compete” with them, as we are arriving for a short term.