Soroka Medical Center

The story

Soroka is the central hospital of the Negev, and serves about a million residents of the south — from Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon to Eilat. It was born out of distress: the Hadassah hospital that operated in the Old City was too small for a city that was growing, and in 1950 Beersheba was declared a civil authority and thousands of immigrants were directed to it. David Ben-Gurion held that the government must establish a hospital in the Negev, but the Ministry of Health had no money. The mayor David Tuviyahu took it up, and met with Moshe Soroka, chairman of the center of Kupat Holim Klalit, who expressed willingness; the Minister of Health Yosef Serlin objected, because he wished to reduce the activity of the health fund. In August 1955 Dov Bigon, the Histadrut's representative in the United States, persuaded David Dubinsky, president of the American ladies' garment workers' union, to donate a million dollars — a quarter of a million each year over four years. At the end of that year a new government was formed, and the Minister of Health Israel Barzilai persuaded Ben-Gurion to approve: the health fund would build in Beersheba, and the Ministry of Health in Ashkelon. Ben-Gurion was persuaded also by the fear of a shortage of hospitalization for the wounded in the planned Sinai war. On 23 July 1956 the first tractors went onto the ground. The building was designed by the architects Arieh Sharon and Benjamin Idelson, and in October 1959 the opening ceremony was held: two hundred and sixty beds and about three hundred employees. After the death of Moshe Soroka it was decided to name the hospital after him. At the beginning of 1968 the ornamental garden designed by the landscape architect Walter Pollak was dedicated. Today the center extends over 286 dunams with about thirty buildings and 1,194 beds, and it is a university hospital: the campus of the Faculty of Health Sciences is located within it.

• 1948
• People
• Education
• Health
• Beersheba