Internationally acclaimed healer of the body Dr. Mehmet Oz joined Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, called by many a healer of the soul, on a visit to Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa on July 31.
“I learned about Rambam several years ago and its rich tradition in innovation,” Dr. Oz said. “Rambam is entrenched with a culture of a heterogeneous mix of Arabs and Israelis — a microcosm of what it should be like in the whole world… Rambam is a model of coexistence,” Dr. Oz told hundreds of medical specialists and fans.
Led by Prof. Karl Skorecki, Rambam’s director of medical and research development, Dr. Oz and Rabbi Boteach toured the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital and Rambam’s state-of-the-art shock-trauma ward, prior to hosting a public lecture on health, morality, religion and culture.
Upon entering the underground hospital, Dr. Oz said that it “speaks to how we need a holistic place for healing, which means a hospital’s commitment to giving [patients] peace of mind in all conditions, including wartime.” He continued, this facility “also means giving you peace of mind when you go to the hospital in wartime that you are in a healing environment.”
Following rocket attacks from Lebanon that landed on the Rambam Health Care Campus in the summer of 2006, the hospital began constructing a 1,500 car parking lot that within 72 hours can be converted into 2,000-bed underground hospital, the world’s largest subterranean hospital facility. The Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency hospital is protected against biological or chemical warfare, complete with its own generators, water supply, state-of-the-art equipment and more.
Because Rambam is the largest full-service and trauma hospital serving the two million residents of northern Israel, this facility will prepare the hospital to continue treating patients in case of war. Rambam is now beginning its final push to equip this underground hospital for use when needed.