Read

From our Hadassah Medical Organization Director General Yoram Weiss

Topic:

Letters

Prof. Yoram Weiss discusses emergency coordination with Dr. Saar Hashavia (l) Director of Pediatric ER, and Dr. Itai Gross, physician at thePediatric ER on mission to the Przemyśl refugee center in Poland

What is Hadassah doing? That's the first question we're asked during a world crisis. And the answer is that the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) and our mother organization, Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America, are always a vector for help.

That's the first question we're asked during a world crisis. And the answer is that the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) and our mother organization, Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America, are always a vector for help.

HMO was the first hospital on the ground on the Polish border to treat refugees after Russia invaded Ukraine. More than 100 Hadassah staff members, doctors, nurses and technicians provided medical and emotional aid. We have continued to train teams of Ukrainian medical practitioners, social workers and health advocates in oncology treatment as our way of supporting the people of Ukraine and keeping our promise that we would not forget their struggle.

When Turkey suffered a devastating earthquake recently, members of our medical staff quickly arrived on the scene, saving the lives of men, women and children pulled from the rubble.

Outreach is in our Hadassah genes.

In 1909, Henrietta Szold saw children in Palestine with flies in their eyes and suffering from malnutrition and infectious diseases. So she founded Hadassah to create a health care system there. In 1918, the year of the influenza pandemic, Hadassah opened a nursing school in Jerusalem, the first post-high-school academy for women in any subject.

Now, all these years later, we’re at the threshold of electrifying changes in medicine. To learn which medications work best for our patients, we're testing them in the laboratory with 3D models called organoids made from stem cells. We’re applying big data to choose the most effective treatment for each patient, comparing their condition with vast numbers of treatment outcomes. Patients are already beating the blood cancer multiple myeloma with Hadassah's own adaption of CAR-T therapy. We’re doing back surgery without putting patients to sleep. For the first time ever, Israeli researchers from Hadassah hospitals have created human male and female cells with the same genetic code, from the same person — a unique model that could lead to new discoveries of sex differences and gender medicine.

You have empowered us to bravely set forth to tackle the toughest medical problems. You have inspired us to reach across borders to whoever needs our help. Together, may we continue our journey of healing!