Restoring war, terror victims
Hadassah International executive director Jorge Diener said GRC’s benefit to victims of terrorism and war had been considered at the concept stage.
History has shown that Jerusalem’s Gandel Rehabilitation Centre (GRC), providing its first services in January, opened in the right place at the right time.
With principal funding from the Gandel Foundation towards the $US132.6 million total cost of the facility — the largest-ever single donation from Australia to Israel — Hadassah Hospital’s Mount Scopus campus is restoring bodies and minds for Israeli soldiers and civilians wounded on October 7 and in the war.
Six years ago, there were just 38 rehabilitation beds in Jerusalem. Philanthropists John and Pauline Gandel understood the need for a civilian facility but could not have envisioned GRC’s pivotal role today.
Speaking to The AJN from Jerusalem on Monday, Hadassah International executive director Jorge Diener said GRC’s benefit to victims of terrorism and war had been considered at the concept stage, but the scale of the current war had not been contemplated.
Since October 7, more than 20,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been injured. An estimated 3000, mainly IDF personnel, require acute rehabilitation to restore motion after injuries to nerves, muscles and bones, a process taking weeks or months. But on October 7, there were only 1000 rehabilitation beds in Israel, and other centres were years from opening.
Hadassah accelerated two of GRC’s eight floors, initially due for the second half of 2024, to January, to provide physio and occupational therapy.
Diener cited GRC patient Michal Elon, a mother of 10, who was shot three times near the Gaza border on Simchat Torah. “Five months later, she is still at GRC, trying to recover the ability to move her hand.”
GRC aims to minimise the number of permanently disabled, he said, in some cases using cutting-edge robotic stimulation and anti-gravity technology.
Meanwhile, GRC’s psychiatrists and psychologists are treating everyone from small children and victims of sexual violence to dentists who had to identify human remains from dental records.
Urging more Australians to join key GRC donors, Diener warned that if the war intensifies on Israel’s northern border, the facility may become even more essential.
The centre “was a gift to Jerusalem, but it has now become a pillar of healing a country in its most difficult challenge in its 75 years of existence”. GRC, he said, came “min hashamayim, from the heavens”.
For further information, please contact Hadassah Australia president
Ron Finkel, 9272 5600 / rfinkel@hadassahaustralia.org
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