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Last update - 22:11 28/12/2008
Ashkelon hospital moves its essential departments underground
By The Associated Press
Tags: israel, israel news, hamas 

Fearing missile strikes from the Gaza Strip, Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital on Saturday moved its most essential departments into an underground bomb shelter.

The hospital in this city of 120,000 people about 17 kilometers (11 miles) north of the Gaza border has sent half its patients home to get them out of harm's way. Those remaining have been placed in cramped rooms previously used for storage.

In February, a rocket from Gaza landed adjacent to the hospital's helicopter pad and in May a rocket crashed into a busy shopping mall in the city, injuring 14 people.
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After Israel an air offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday, Barzilai put its emergency plans into operation.

It activated a war room, with direct lines to the military, police and paramedics in the field. It relocated departments most exposed to attack and placed its least mobile patients - such as those in the geriatric, infant and maternity wards - underground.

On Sunday, two rockets fell in Ashkelon itself and another 22 in the surrounding district and Barzilai's makeshift, fortified emergency room began receiving its first casualties. Three people were treated for shrapnel wounds and several others for shock.

"This is something that we've been preparing for," said Dr. Ron Lobel, the hospital's deputy director." In a city like Ashkelon, one rocket is enough to create a multiple-casualty scenario for us".

He said that when the hospital itself was in the line of fire as now, Barzilai usually restricted its treatment of patients to emergency care. Once stabilized, the wounded were moved to larger hospitals in central Israel where treatment could be given in a more spacious and safe environment, he said.

The 500-bed hospital currently has 200 patients.

On Sunday, warning sirens wailed several times sending doctors, patients and guests rushing for cover.

Outside, pedestrians scurried into buildings but after the sound of distant explosions faded away the street once again filled up with residents trying to keep up their usual routines.

For some, however, it wasn't that easy.

Clutching a cigarette in trembling fingers, Tzipi Moshe, 59, said she was afraid to keep walking to her doctor's appointment.

"When it comes out of nowhere like that, your heart just jumps out," she said. "What will be the end? I guess we just need to be strong but it is not that easy".

A woman taking cover nearby briefly fainted. She refused water and food from bystanders, instead shivering in a corner, apparently in shock.

In Barzilai's underground children's ward, sick Gazans lay alongside sick
Israelis as a clown hopped around trying to coax smiles from them all.

Lobel said that his facility had close ties with Gaza's Shifa hospital, and accepted many of its patients who need treatment the Gazan hospital cannot provide. He said it wasn't uncommon to have a colleague in Gaza call him for assistance even as rockets rained down on Ashkelon.

"It might seem completely absurd," Lobel said. "But we have the privilege to be doctors. Our medical ethics do not distinguish between patients. We treat whoever needs to be treated."

A Gaza woman, whose two-month-old granddaughter was being treated for an unidentified ailment, wept when asked how she was coping. She said she was fortunate her granddaughter was getting the best medical treatment but was worried about her daughter and other grandchildren in Gaza City. She said some of their next-door neighbors had been killed by the Israeli airstrikes that have killed more than 280 people.

"I am very sad and hurt," she said, in Arabic. "We want peace, not war."

She refused to identify herself or have her picture taken, for fear of retribution if her presence in Israel was discovered in Gaza.

A few doors down in the maternity ward, 23-year-old Israeli Keren Shaltiel was resting after giving birth to her second child.

She said hearing sirens and exploding rockets outside while in labor was bizarre.

A resident of the frequently-hit nearby town of Sderot, she said she was used to such sounds but didn't expect them to accompany her delivery.

"Today is a very happy day for me personally," she said from her underground hospital room. "But today I am also very worried about my town and my country."


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