Project Spotlight: Securing Israel’s Hospitals

The Fellowship  |  May 23, 2023

In 2023, The Fellowship approved a $1 million matching grant to the Shamir Medical Center in the city of Be’er Ya’akov (9 miles from Tel Aviv) to fortify the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit against rocket attacks. This protection is all the more important as we continue to see escalations and tensions on the border, like the most recent Operation Shield and Arrow in early May 2023. This grant will help protect Israeli parents like Inga and Yaniv…

Good News for Inga and Yaniv

Parents who have newborn babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) already have enough stress to deal with. But new parents in Israel, especially those whose babies are being treated at Israeli hospitals in areas vulnerable to rocket attacks, have an additional worry. They also know that at any time, a rocket attack could occur.

This was the case for the couple, Inga and Yaniv, whose baby was sent to the NICU because he had lung failure immediately after he was born. “He was connected to so many pipes and wires. When he was born, I looked at the bleak facial expressions of the medical staff and we thought that our child would not survive,” explains the baby’s mother, Inga. She tells us she and her husband did not sleep for the next 40 hours, and the entire time they were worried for their child’s life. Finally, they received good news from the staff that their baby was recovering.

Having gone through this experience, they know how stressful it is and how it’s made even more stressful by the fact that the hospital isn’t fortified. “The babies that are here are totally helpless and the medical staff would not have time to take them out to a distant safe space on such short notice,” adds Yaniv, the baby’s father.

But thankfully, they recently received more good news—The Fellowship is going to make sure parents like them won’t have to stress out over a security crisis in Israel, because we are helping to fund the fortification of Shamir Medical Center’s NICU!

Now, even if a security emergency is happening outside, parents can focus on the emergency that matters the most inside the hospital—caring for their newborn babies in the NICU.

“A huge thank you to The Fellowship. We are happy to know that soon the babies and the staff will be protected during an emergency!”