Hadassah - Medical Work

Medical Work

In 1913, Hadassah sent two nurses to Palestine. They set up a small public health station in Jerusalem to provide maternity care and treat trachoma, a dreaded eye disease rampant in the Middle East.

In 1918, Hadassah established the American Zionist Medical Unit (AZMU), manned by 45 medical health professionals. The AZMU helped to establish six hospitals in Palestine which were then turned over to municipal authorities. That year, Hadassah also founded a nursing school to train local personnel and create a cadre of nurses.

In 1919, Hadassah organized the first School Hygiene Department in Palestine to give routine health examinations to Jerusalem school children. During the Arab riots of 1920, Hadassah nurses cared for the wounded on both sides. Henrietta Szold moved to Jerusalem that year to develop community health and preventive care programs.

In 1921, a Hadassah nurse, Bertha Landsman, set up the first Tipat Halav perinatal care center in Jerusalem, and Hadassah opened a hospital in Tel Aviv. The following year, it established a hospital in Haifa. In 1926, Hadassah established the first tuberculosis treatment center in Safed. In 1929, Hadassah opened the Nathan and Lina Straus Health Center in Jerusalem. In the 1930s, planning began for a new hospital to replace the Rothschild hospital founded in 1888 on Street of the Prophets, Jerusalem. Rose L. Halprin, Hadassah's sixth national president, moved to Jerusalem to serve as liaison between the American office and Hadassah in Palestine. The Rothschild-Hadassah University Hospital, the first teaching hospital and medical center in Palestine, opened on May 9, 1939.

The British Royal Commission, known as the Peel Commission, praised the work of Hadassah in its 1937 report:

The Hadassah Medical Organization has developed a widespread system of clinics in Jewish centres and hospitals in the principal towns...Though naturally the Jewish population benefited most, the Hadassah medical services were available to all the communities in Palestine and many of the poorer classes amongst the Arabs received much assistance from the work of the organization. This disinterested philanthropy of Hadassah deserves recognition: it was a real step towards the promotion of good feeling between the two races; but unhappily the effect of its work was impaired by other influences.

Hadassah founded the Hebrew University of Jerusalem-Hadassah Medical School, the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing and Hadassah College Jerusalem. Hadassah supports The Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO), consisting of two hospital complexes at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.