The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower - a carefully conceived, cutting-edge, energy-efficient, inpatient facility - integrates Hadassah's deep dedication to healing with science's most sophisticated developing medical technologies.
Early on Monday 19th March 2012, the first patients moved into the new Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower building at Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, opening the latest chapter in Hadassah’s 100-year narrative. This building is among the world's most advanced inpatient towers, which allows patients and medical staff unprecedented conditions for treatment and recovery. The building will be populated gradually over the next year from the old building.
The main hospital building of Hadassah Ein Kerem (about 750 beds) was designed 50 years ago and opened 40 years ago. Changing medical needs and wishes of the patients required the Hadassah hospital management to establish a modern hospital facility, which will be a suitable residence for Hadassah specialists and the sophisticated equipment they use, and will be the hospital of Jerusalem, Israel and the entire region for the coming decades.
The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower completes the modern campus of Hadassah Ein Kerem and is a fitting addition to the Cancer Center’s Sharett Institute of Oncology, the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother and Child Center and the Judy and Sidney Swartz Center for Emergency Medicine.
The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower - General Information
- The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower rises 68 meters above the ground
- The tower includes 14 floors above ground and 5 floors underground
- 160,000 tons of concrete were poured into the building. At its peak, the construction employed 550 workers
- About 1000 Hadassah employees and many experts prepared the program for the building.
- The building was designed by two architect companies (Jerusalem-based Spector Amisar Architects and Texas-based architects HKS)
- Two construction companies were used to build the tower: Housing and Construction (Solel Boneh), and Electra
- The Davidson building has 500 beds, 20 operating rooms, 20 silent elevators, three escalators, four healing gardens, and a synagogue
- Every bed has a window. A third of the tower’s 500 inpatient beds are in single rooms, the remainder in doubles, with complete privacy for each patient. Next to each bed is a recliner where relatives can spend the night
- Every room has a safe, closet, Shabbat light, and en suite bathroom
- A personal entertainment system is installed next to each bed. Patients have free multi-channel TV, radio and music stations, Internet, and personal services that can be ordered by remote control
- The Davidson Tower operating rooms are among the most advanced in the world. Some hybrid rooms allow surgery and catheterization in parallel. The walls are constructed of stainless steel. The most advanced control system is installed in the operating rooms
- A Light Rail Station is to be built next to the hospital tower, which will disembark directly outside it and already has the established infrastructure.
- 3 of the elevators that service The Davidson Tower are glass-encased
- The Davidson building has a 7-storey, 1,000-space parking lot built across the street
- The building is named after Sarah Wetsman Davidson, mother of the late Bill Davidson - one of the greatest supporters of Hadassah, who along with his wife Karen, contributed upwards of $75 million to help build the tower.
Sarah Wetsman Davidson started Hadassah’s Detroit chapter. The Davidson's generosity and commitment to the community in Detroit, the Jewish people and the State of Israel are evident in many places and sites. Sadly, Bill Davidson did not live to see the tower completed. He died in 2009. The Hadassah Medical Center sends its condolences from Jerusalem to Karen and the entire Davidson family.