Yad Sarah informed its employees that next Wednesday, it will begin building a community emergency room on the entrance floor of its Jerusalem headquarters in the Yefe Nof neighborhood, The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday.The voluntary organization is best known for lending hundreds of thousands of pieces medical equipment each year, thus saving the state huge amounts of money by preventing or delaying hospitalization.It also provides a range of services, including transportation and daycare for the disabled, drop-in centers, emergency alarms and centers for the disabled to view equipment.With a community emergency room, the sort that TEREM has in various parts of the country, Yad Sarah would be venturing out to actually providing medical care.However, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, with its large emergency room, is just a 30-second drive away from Yad Sarah.Thus it would seem unusual to open such a facility, as Yad emergency room patients who arrive by ambulance or privately and need hospitalization would have to be taken by another ambulance to Shaare Zedek or the more distant Hadassah-University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.A few months ago, the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha’ir reported that Yad Sarah was planning to open a community emergency room, but the story was denied by both Yad Sarah and the Hadassah Medical Organization as being “premature, something that was raised but no decision has been taken.”Shaare Zedek management said it learned of Yad Sarah’s announcement to employees “from The Jerusalem Post” and was “looking into it.”Yad Sarah spokesman David Rothner told the Post: “Right now, we have nothing to say.”Hadassah Medical Organization spokeswoman Hadar Elboim gave the same reaction she gave Kol Ha’ir months ago.“An idea of cooperation was raised, but it has, at this time, not advanced. We have no idea what Yad Sarah is building. At this time, there is no connection with Hadassah. We are still at a very preliminary stage of an idea only and have not gone into any details on funding.”Asked to comment, the Health Ministry said that anyone who opens a community emergency room not attached to a hospital need not have a license or even permission.“However, it has to meet the accepted medical standards...which include running resuscitation in the community, safety of treatment, report on unusual events, [and] preventing infections in medical institutions.”The ministry did not say if it was in favor or opposed to a community emergency room in the area.
