With the agreement of the Ministry of Health and the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee, the plan to close the maternity ward at Bikur Cholim Hospital will return to the District Committee’s Subcommittee on Objections – so anyone who wants to oppose it from the public, especially the nearby ultra-Orthodox public. The Ministry of Health recommended closing the maternity ward, partly because there is no emergency room in the compound, and according to the residents, the deposit of the plan for changes in the compound did not include a mention of this recommendation, so the whole procedure was actually hidden.
Read more in Calcalist
The decision was made at the end of a hearing in the Jerusalem District Court, sitting as a court of administrative matters and with the consent of the parties. An attorney representing the Ministry of Health and the district committee conditioned this on the fact that the validity of the plan in the compound, which includes the construction of new buildings, would remain unchanged.
The main argument raised by Rabbi Natan Kramer’s Transparent Jerusalem Association, which led the petition, concerns a decision made in January 2019 by the Subcommittee on Objections, to accept the Ministry of Health’s objection to a plan dealing with the compound and cancel the permitted uses of the maternity hospital and hospital. -100 years. The direct implication is the closure of the hospital.
According to the association represented by Adv. Oded Brick, this is a decision that affects hundreds of thousands of Jerusalem residents, especially in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, so if the committee acted as required, ie by re-depositing the plan, the public had the opportunity to object. The committee consciously acted to silence the issue with the clear knowledge that there would be a great deal of opposition to it, and indeed, residents discovered the significance of the decision, approached the committee to have the plan lawfully published and after being denied, the petition was filed.
A few years ago, Bikur Cholim Hospital ran into financial difficulties and as a result entered a liquidation process, and a recovery program was implemented in which Shaare Zedek Medical Center began operating the complex. Today, most of the medical activity is in the maternity ward, where about 6,000 births are performed a year, most of them by the ultra-Orthodox population.
The hospital, also known as the Ziv complex, is located in the center of Jerusalem at the corner of Strauss and Haneviim streets and covers an area of 8.8 dunams. Today there are two historic buildings, including one of the most impressive buildings in the city: the Ziv wing of the hospital, also known as the German hospital built in 1894. In the past, businessman Arkady Gaydamak was the owner of the complex, but he sold it in January 2015 to Ta’aman Real Estate. In 2017, Ta’aman sold half of its rights to the place for housing and construction. The developers argued at the hearing that they were indifferent to the use that would be set for the hospital.
The plan for the site includes the preservation of the old buildings, and the construction of two 13-story buildings that include 210 apartments, 4,000 square meters of office space and 6,500 square meters of additional employment space for the benefit of the local medical center.