Sheba Medical Center

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The main hospitalization building at Sheba

The Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer (Hebrew: המרכז הרפואי ע"ש חיים שיבא - תל השומר‎), often referred to as Tel HaShomer Hospital, is the largest hospital in Israel,^[1]. It was named after Chaim Sheba, once the head of the hospital. It was founded in 1948 along with the fledgling State of Israel to treat the wounded of Israel's War of Independence.

Situated on a 150-acre (0.61 km²) campus on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Sheba today comprises 120 departments and clinics and 1,700 beds, employing more than 1,300 physicians, 2,400 nurses and 3,300 other healthcare workers and scientists.^{[citation needed]}

The medical center combines a major Acute Care Hospital with a Rehabilitation Hospital[1], Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital[2], Laboratory Division, Outpatient Division, and an Academic Campus. It handles more than one million patient visits a year, including 200,000 emergency visits annually, and conducts more than two million medical tests of all types each year, on a $320 million (approximate) annual budget.

Sheba is also home to the Israel National Center for Health Policy and Epidemiology Research (equivalent to the U.S. National Institutes of Health), the internationally-acclaimed Israel National Center for Medical Simulation (MSR) [3], the Israel National Blood Bank and Cord Blood Bank, and the Safra International Congenital Heart Center.

The Sheba Medical Center also is a medical research powerhouse. At least 25 percent of all Israeli medical clinical research is conducted at Sheba. It is the main clinical trial venue for human health scientific studies conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan universities; and it is a key partner with industry as an initiator, catalyst and testing center for Israeli medical technology and new drugs.

Sheba provides services to patients from across the Middle East, including many patients (especially children) from the Palestinian Authority. It also guidance and mentoring in the planning, erection and operation of healthcare systems and hospitals around the world[4], including Equatorial Guinea, Russia, Ivory Coast, Argentina and Brazil. This includes, for example, a multi disciplinary clinic in Ukraine, an imaging Center in Uzbekistan, a medical center in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (as a "turn-key" project, including on going support), an oncology center in Mauritania, a polyclinic in the Ivory Coast, and more. Sheba is committed to international relief efforts, and has sent medical support to Kosovo, Armenia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda, to name only a few of many countries. Many patients from the Palestinian Authority and the Arab world are treated at Sheba too.

Other major centers at Sheba include the Sheba Cancer Treatment and Research Centers [5], the Sheba Heart Center [6], and the Tel Hashomer Medical Research, Infrastructure and Services Co. Ltd., which provides global consulting and training services [7].

Recent scientific research news from Sheba includes studies such as: pregnancy after transplantation of cryopreserved ovarian tissue in a patient with ovarian failure after chemotherapy[8]; an alginate-based stem cell biomaterial injected into heart attack victims that may repair heart tissue[9]; and a study showing that heavy cell phone users are subject to a higher risks of benign and malignant tumors of the salivary gland[10].

Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has been hospitalized in a coma at Sheba since May 28 and November 6, 2006.

Sheba is supported by a network of philanthropists and friends around the world.[11]