The brains of the 900,000 Jerusalemites are safer, now that Shaare Zedek Medical Center has opened its Helmsley Neurological Center on campus, which is accessible from any part of the capital and able to treat strokes and other conditions quickly.

While Hadassah-University Medical Center contains the same infrastructure, the fact that Shaare Zedek – whose trauma center has been upgraded to “Level One” due to its new neurosurgery capabilities – is opposite Mount Herzl and much closer than the Ein Kerem complex, meaning it could save additional lives. Stroke is the third-biggest cause of death in Israel after cancer and heart disease.

“There are tens of billions of neurons in the brain, and after an ischemic stroke [caused by a clot in a vessel], one loses two million nerve cells every minute. If you can get patients to a computerized tomography [CT scan] unit to diagnose the stroke and give medication to melt the stroke, you can prevent or at least minimize the resulting disability,” said Shaare Zedek director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy. The opening of the center, Halevy added, is a “milestone in our 114-year history. The fate of many stroke, neurological and neurosurgical patients in Jerusalem is being changed today.”

 The early signs of stroke are sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body; sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding; sudden trouble seeing or blurred vision in one or both eyes; or sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination. In some cases, the patient has suffered a transient ischemic attack that goes away in 24 hours but which could predict a future stroke, but the initial symptoms are the same for both conditions…

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