With more than 57 percent of Israel’s population fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the highest percentage of any country, Israelis can visualize an end to the pandemic there.
But with the end of the crisis in sight, Magen David Adom, Israel’s paramedic and Red Cross service, has renewed its effort to complete a new national blood bank before Israel’s next potential crisis — a hostile attack or earthquake that would force the country to dip into its strategic blood reserves.
“Before the pandemic, Israel was experiencing terror attacks, rocket attacks, and rapidly escalating tensions at the country’s northern border,” said Tamir Pardo, former director of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. “When the coronavirus pandemic abates, there’s no reason to believe there won’t be a resurgence of attacks and a resumption of threats to the Israeli people.”
With that in mind, Magen David Adom, which collects, safety-tests, and distributes nearly all the blood used by Israel’s hospitals, began construction in 2016 of a new blood bank in Ramla, Israel. When completed later this year, the facility will double Israel’s blood-processing capacity. But just as important, the new blood bank has three of its six floors underground on successively more reinforced levels, including a super-reinforced blood vault that will house the country’s strategic blood reserves.
The building will protect the country’s blood supply against missile, chemical, and biological attack and enable MDA’s hematologists and other blood center employees to continue separating blood into its medically usable components, even when the nation is under attack. The building is also reinforced against earthquakes, an important factor in a region bisected by two seismic faults.
The new facility, the Marcus National Blood Services Center, is named after Bernie and Billi Marcus of Atlanta, whose foundation donated $25 million to help fund construction and a more recent matching-gifts grant of $10 million to ensure completion of the $130 million project.
Construction and funding for the blood center has been overseen by American Friends of Magen David Adom, MDA’s U.S.-based philanthropic affiliate. Given the building’s strategic importance for Israel, construction continued without interruption amid the pandemic, requiring construction workers to sequester onsite to prevent exposure to Covid and risk a work stoppage.
“When the Marcus Center is complete, it will enable us to continue processing and distributing blood to Israel’s hospitals during the types of crises when blood is needed most, whether it’s a war or natural disaster like an earthquake or pandemic,” said Prof. Eilat Shinar, M.D., head of Magen David Adom’s Blood Services Division and a deputy-director general of the organization.
“In our line of work, we believe the time to prepare for the next crisis is long before it happens,” she said. “That’s why we continued construction on the Marcus Blood Center, even as we were simultaneously dealing with the Covid pandemic. But getting this project completed on time will go a long way in making Israel and its people safer.”