An underground hospital is a hospital that is constructed underground to protect patients and staff from attack during war. They were often used during World War II but very few now remain operational.
The Ceppo Hospital of Pistoia was founded in 1277 in a labyrinth of tunnels under the city and is one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals in the world. [1]
“Carriere Suzanne“ was an underground hospital built during the second World War in a limestone quarry the “Carrieres de Montigny”, north of Compiègne. [2]
A hospital was built inside tunnels under Arras, named Carrière Wellington, with facilities for 700 beds. [3]
Hohlgangsanlage 8 was an artillery storage tunnel build by Organisation Todt workers for the Germans during World War II in St. Lawrence, Jersey, which was converted to a hospital to deal with casualties after the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. The tunnel complex is open to the public during the summer months.
Hohlgangsanlage 7/40 (Ho.7/40) two interconnected cave passage installations of 7,000m², [4] : 37 were built in 1942-43 by German Fortress Engineer and Organisation Todt workers to store vehicles, ammunition, food, fuel and equipment. Part of Ho. 7/40 was equipped and used for a short while in 1944 as a hospital, as the planned hospital tunnel had not been built, however patients underground did not recuperate very well. [5] : 35 The tunnel complex is open to the public during the summer months.
During the Second World War, the Mtarfa Hospital was reorganized as the 90th General Hospital and expanded to accommodate a maximum of 1200 beds. An underground hospital was excavated under the military hospital. [6]
Israel currently has at least three hospitals with dedicated underground facilities.
Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center is the main hospital serving Tel Aviv, Israel. It is the third-largest hospital complex in the country. [7]
In 2011, a 700-1,000 bed bombproof emergency facility was opened. The building, with 13 stories above ground and four stories underground, provides protection against conventional, chemical and biological attack. Construction began in 2008. The cost of the building was $110 million, with a donation of $45 million from Israeli billionaire Sammy Ofer. [8] The architect was Arad Sharon, grandson of Arieh Sharon who designed the original facility. [9]
Rambam Health Care Campus the largest medical center in northern Israel and fifth largest in Israel, began in October 2010 work on a protected emergency underground hospital designed to withstand conventional, chemical, and biological attacks. The project included a three-floor parking lot that could be transformed at short notice into a 2,000-bed hospital. The hospital can generate its own power and store enough oxygen, drinking water and medical supplies for up to three days. [10]
The 90 million shekel fortified emergency room at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah has gone operational, becoming Israel’s largest ER. The 5,000 square meter (58,000 square feet) facility is capable of treating 200,000 patients annually. There is also a trauma center capable of addressing numerous patients simultaneously. [11]
The hospital Södersjukhuset in Stockholm has an underground complex measuring 4,700 square meters (50,600 square feet) called DEMC (Disaster Emergency Center), which was completed and inaugurated on 25 November 1994. In peacetime the complex is used for training and scientific research. In case of disaster or war the complex is fully operational as a normal hospital, it has 270 beds in peacetime and 160 in wartime. [12]
Doctors and international N.G.O.s have created an elaborate network of underground hospitals throughout Syria. They have installed cameras in intensive-care units, so that doctors abroad can monitor patients by Skype and direct technicians to administer proper treatment. [13]
In 2016, because of the number of hospitals that have been damaged or destroyed in the city, hospitals have moved underground. [14]
The 2019 Syrian-Danish documentary film The Cave is about a makeshift underground hospital nicknamed "the Cave" in Eastern Ghouta.
Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of 290,306 in 2022. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to the Baháʼí Faith's Baháʼí World Centre, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a destination for Baháʼí pilgrimage.
Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, commonly referred to as Ichilov Hospital is the largest teaching hospital and general hospital serving Tel Aviv, Israel and its metropolitan area and is the second-largest hospital complex in the country. The complex is spread out over an area of 150,000 m2 and incorporates four hospitals: Ichilov General Hospital and Ida Sourasky Rehabilitation Center, Lis Maternity Hospital, and Dana Children's Hospital. The director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center is Prof. Ronni Gamzu.
Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer, also known as Tel HaShomer Hospital, is the largest hospital in Israel, located in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan in the Tel HaShomer neighborhood, Israel. In 2020, Newsweek ranked it as the 9th-best hospital in the world, in 2021, the 10th best, and in 2024 the 9th best; in all three cases scoring the highest for an Asian or Israeli hospital.
The Tel Aviv Light Rail, also known as Dankal is a mass transit system for Gush Dan, the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in central Israel. The system will include different modes of mass transit, including rapid transit (metro), light rail transit (LRT), and bus rapid transit (BRT). Overseen by NTA Metropolitan Mass Transit System Ltd., a government agency, the project will complement the intercity and suburban rail network operated by Israel Railways.
Hohlgangsanlage 8 was a partially completed underground hospital complex in St. Lawrence, Jersey, built by German occupying forces during the occupation of Jersey during World War II. Over 1 km (1,100 yd) of tunnels were completed. After the liberation of the Channel Islands, the complex was converted into a museum detailing the occupation and remains a visitor attraction.
The Shaare Zedek Medical Center is a large teaching hospital in Jerusalem. It was established in 1902 and is affiliated with Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Sammy Ofer was an Israeli shipping magnate and one of the richest men in the country.
Galilee Medical Center, abbreviated GMC, is a hospital located in the coastal city of Nahariya and is the second largest hospital in northern Israel. It was established in 1956.
Al-Shifa Hospital was the largest medical complex and central hospital in the Gaza Strip, located in the neighborhood of northern Rimal in Gaza City.
Hohlgangsanlage are a number of tunnels constructed in Jersey by occupying German forces during the occupation of Jersey. The Germans intended these bunkers to protect troops and equipment from aerial bombing and to act as fortifications in their own right.
Rambam Health Care Campus commonly called Rambam Hospital, is a teaching hospital in the Bat Galim neighborhood of Haifa, Israel. Rambam Health Care Campus is a part of Tertiary Referral Center for Northern Israel, It was founded in 1938, in Palestine, 10 years before the establishment of the State of Israel.
Arieh Sharon was an Israeli architect and winner of the Israel Prize for Architecture in 1962. Sharon was a critical contributor to the early architecture in Israel and the leader of the first master plan of the young state, reporting to then Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion. Sharon studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Walter Gropius and Hannes Meyer and on his return to Israel in 1931, started building in the International Style, better known locally as the Bauhaus style of Tel Aviv. Sharon built private houses, cinemas and in 1937 his first hospital, a field in which he specialized in his later career, planning and constructing many of the country's largest medical centers.
Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park is a national park in central Israel, containing a large network of caves recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The national park includes the remains of the historical towns of Maresha, one of the important towns of Judah during the First Temple Period, and Bayt Jibrin, a depopulated Palestinian town known as Eleutheropolis in the Roman era. However, Maresha and Bayt Jibrin are not part of the UNESCO site, which covers only the cave network.
Assuta Medical Center is a private medical center in the Ramat HaHayal neighborhood in north Tel Aviv, Israel established in 1936. The hospital performs surgery and diagnostic procedures in all fields of medicine, including cardiology, oncology, gynecology and urology.
Shamir Medical Center, formerly Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, is a teaching hospital in Be'er Ya'akov, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Jacob Gil is an Israeli architect and town planner
Rafael (Rafi) Beyar is an Israeli medical doctor, entrepreneur, and professor who is the eighth director of Rambam Health Care Campus since 1996. Beyar, an authority on interventional cardiology, also continues to practice in his specialty of clinical invasive cardiology. Beyar is the editor of several books related to cardiology and electrophysiology, including Frontiers in Interventional Cardiology, Proceedings from International Meetings, Analysis of Cardiac Development: from Embryo to Old Age; and co-founder of Corindus Vascular Robotics.
The Bnai Zion Medical Center was established in 1922 as the first Jewish-founded district general hospital in Haifa, the center offers medical care, education, research and services to the diverse and growing population of northern Israel. In a recent survey in a national newspaper, the Bnai Zion medical center was voted the first hospital in the Haifa region of Israel. Immediately after Oct 7th 2023, following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Bnai Zion Medical Center CEO and former Chief Medical Officer of the Israeli Navy, Dr. Ohad Hochman, opened the only Soldier Rehabilitation hospital department in the North of Israel in response to emergent medical needs.
Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, founded in 1992, is a paediatric hospital focused on children's health, particularly organ transplantation and cancers. Schneider treats infants, children, teens, and young adults up to age 18 and for some conditions, age 21.