Ashdod's Samson Assuta Hospital - Saving lives by the sea

AuthorMAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
Date07 January 2021
Published date07 January 2021
Three years ago, for the city of Ashdod, time was the silent killer.

Israel's fifth largest city, with 250,000 residents, lacked a hospital and they were forced to drive a minimum of 30 minutes to the nearest location to receive emergency care. Sometimes people did not make it.

"We have saved real lives, just because we are in the area," said Itay Zoarets, director of trauma services for Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital, which opened three years ago – the first new public hospital to be built in the State of Israel in 40 years.

In just three years, the numbers speak for themselves: 240,268 emergency department visits, 15,000 births, 7.6 million lab tests and the list goes on. But behind the numbers are people, many of whose lives have been improved or even saved because of Assuta Ashdod.

"Six months ago, I was invited to a feast of thanks for a 22-year-old haredi [ultra-Orthodox] man," Zoarets recalled. "He had fallen from a fifth floor and was in a profoundly serious situation. He was intubated for a month and had so many surgeries."

Eventually, the hospital managed to stabilize the young man and he came to. He then underwent three months of rehabilitation at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Today, he is walking again.

"When you see him, his wife, his friends, the rosh yeshiva – the full circle – you understand what you did," Zoarets said.

There was also the young woman who was run over by a truck and underwent immediate emergency surgery. She had inflammation in her head.

"We were really worried," the doctor recalled. "Her husband just recently sent a video of her laughing with her daughter. She started to teach her again. I started to cry because something like this – there are just so many crazy events."

There was also the 17-year-old who was stabbed in the chest. Zoarets clamped his heart with his own two fingers to stop the bleeding while wheeling him into the trauma room.

"If he had to make even a 20-minute drive, he would have died for sure," the doctor said. "He was almost dead and now he is heading to the army… I earned my job that day."

ASSUTA ASHDOD is located on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, halfway between Tel Aviv and Gaza. Before coronavirus, the city was a tourist magnet with its sailboats and yellow sand dunes – at least during peaceful times, when there were not too many rockets.

During 2014's Operation Protective Edge, the city was the landing pad for 239 rockets launched from Gaza.

The city's residents are diverse, with...

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