Tel Aviv University opens emergency national PTSD clinic
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
Tel Aviv University announces the launch of a national PTSD clinic, intended to serve both soldiers and civilians affected by the Israel-Hamas war. The center, to be run by TAU’s National Center for Traumatic Stress and Resilience, is expected to be the largest of its kind in the country.
A “cautious estimate” is that experts expect some 30,000 new cases of PTSD and related issues as a result of the current conflict, according to a TAU press release.
The new center began construction a year ago aiming at a 2025 opening, but “TAU decided to make the necessary adaptations and open the clinic immediately in specially allocated temporary premises. The goal is to enable an immediate therapeutic response to as many patients as possible, thereby bolstering Israel’s depleted mental health system which, even before the war, was unable to meet the population’s real needs,” the university says.
The center is to be led by Dr. Ofir Levi, a TAU faculty member in the school of social work who was previously in charge of the IDF’s PTSD treatment program.
