From the Liveblog of
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Schneider children’s hospital opens major new ward for improved care
Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.
Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel opens its new and advanced “Glass Building” in Petah Tikva today. The new 40,000-square-meter structure doubles the hospital’s physical space. The seven-story glass building includes an emergency hospital that protects against conventional, biological, and chemical attacks. The two-floor protected space has a 52-bed nursery and a dialysis unit.
The new Glass Building adds many additional beds for children from around Israel and beyond by expanding departments by a factor of 1.5. The new departments will have either family rooms or rooms for only two patients, thereby reducing the risk of hospital infections.
The new building houses the only pediatric research and innovation center in Israel and one of only a few in the world. It will also have a brain disease department combining neurology, and psychiatry, and an institute for clinical brain research. The building contains an eating disorder unit, synagogue, auditorium, theater, and therapeutic garden. The hospital’s large education center is physically oriented to interface with the outside world and offers enrichment programs alongside the standard Educational Ministry curriculum.
“The Glass Building takes us into the future and is very positive news for pediatric medicine,” says Schneider director Dr. Efrat Bron-Harlev. “The hospital will advance innovation and will provide a different kind of hospitalization in terms of the physical environment, equipment, and privacy for patients and their families,”
As patients begin being transferred to the new building, work begins on gradually renovating the older hospital building nearby.
