This past Saturday evening, Shaare Zedek Medical Center commemorated the official opening of the Zvi and Betty Ryzman Family Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the presence of the Ryzman family, hospital staff and dignitaries. This new ICU represents a significant enhancement in both size, medical equipment and functionality.
Professor Jonathan Halevy, the Director General of Shaare Zedek, offered tribute to Zvi and Betty Ryzman, the visionary supporters the new ICU from Los Angeles. In his remarks, Zvi Ryzman spoke of his passion for supporting hospitals which have the potential to change lives. He highlighted Shaare Zedek as an institution where the medical staff practice patient care not simply out of a professional commitment but have a personal and even spiritual dedication to improving the lives of all people, without any regard to their personal backgrounds or views. He also compared Professor Halevy to the hospital’s first Director General, Dr. Moshe Wallach, whose dedication made him one of the most legendary figures in modern Israeli medicine.
The new ICU has 14 individual patient rooms which are completely separate from one another. Dr. Philip Levin, Director of the ICU shared that the unit is quite proud that despite the severity of the cases, approximately 90 percent of ICU patients are successfully treated and able to be discharged to their homes. He shared that the new design and medical equipment would directly contribute to improved patient care, “The main challenge in intensive care medicine is combatting the spread of infection between patients and the general hospital environment. This unit’s layout and construction is specifically intended to diminish that threat.”
Zvi and Betty Ryzman were joined by their children and grandchildren as well as members of the hospital staff, members of the Board of Directors, many rabbinical leaders including Israel’s current and former Sephardic Chief Rabbis, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef and Rabbi Shlomo Amar (currently Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem), and Rabbi Asher Weiss who is known as a leading halachic authority in issues pertaining to medical practice and ethics ,among many others, and serves as the chief rabbinical authority for Shaare Zedek as well as family and friends.
