In Between Shifts: A Tribute to the Nursing Profession

Preface

Movie Clips

Preface

Jerusalem, summer 1918. The Great War has ended, however, its lingering scars and bruises bleed on. The city is still in the throes of the crippling famine brought on by the war, and is visibly derelict, dirty, and dilapidated. A host of deadly plagues including smallpox, cholera, and typhoid run rampant, claiming the lives of thousands, whilst local hospitals have either closed down or been seized by the Ottoman army for its own purposes. The result was abject poverty, austerity, and despair, etched into the faces of mothers whose sickly babies hang off their arms – eyes riddled with jaundice, skin red-raw with ringworm, and stomach bloated with hunger.

News of the harrowing sights that await them, do not deter Hadassah Medical Organisation’s team of US nurses. They set sail for the Middle East, as part of a small medical relief unit, put together by prominent Zionist leader and founder of nursing as a medical profession in then-Palestine (now Israel) – Henrietta Szold. No sooner had they recovered from their arduous journey than the nurses were already walking the length and breadth of Jerusalem’s Old City, in full uniform, offering medical care and assistance to those in need.

The medical relief unit reopens all decommissioned hospitals, sets up maternity and paediatric care centres across the city, oversees all health and sanitation duties at schools, and brings healthcare clinics all the way to the country’s remotest rural areas. However their crowning achievement, without a doubt, is the Nurses’ Training School – Palestine’s first-ever all-girls’ polytechnic high school which the team had set up within just three months of arrival.

Few professional fields in history have ever come into being through an event as seismic and game-changing as the arrival of this medical relief group, comprising 20 nurses with a deep-seated sense of mission. This pioneering team effectively laid the foundations to Israel’s National Health Service, as we know it: a universal healthcare system constantly up against a range of ever-changing demands and intricate medical challenges, all the while offering its patients a cutting-edge level of uncompromising, dedicated care; a health service committed to delivering on core values such as innovation, camaraderie, and solidarity; a system offering various demographics the chance to integrate, assimilate, and participate in society – with the overarching aim of providing fully equal, compassionate care, at the very heart of which is the philosophy that man equals man.

And like any other successful revolution – past and present – this too required a future generation to whom the 1918 group of American nurses could pass the baton. And indeed, those tireless visionaries would never have been able to establish a legacy so firmly embedded in the present, and with sights set on the future – had it not been for the passion and prowess of their successors – an unbroken, unflinching continuum of caring hands.

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The nurse, at work and on duty, recurs prominently and consistently across the Israel Film Archive’s vast catalogue. Footage dating back to the 1920s already shows nurses treating the victims of the 1929 Palestine Riots. Over time, nurses continue to feature in newsreels, documentaries, adverts, and propaganda films, to name but a few. The following collection highlights several of the milestones along the path that runs from that inaugural medical relief team of Hadassah nurses through to rare archival footage, and all the way to feature films that foreground the character of the nurse as the main protagonist – a living testimony to their pivotal role in an ever-changing society.

One of the first milestones was the burgeoning network of maternal and paediatric healthcare centres, aka ‘tipat halav’ (Hebrew for ‘milk drop’), which first emerged in the early 20^th century, with the aim of promoting preventative medicine and ensuring ongoing healthy baby and infant development. Thanks to ‘Tipat Halav,’ infant mortality rates in Israel took a nosedive and to this day, remain one of the world’s lowest. Another trailblazing scheme was ‘Malben’ – a UJA-led programme that began in 1949 and for years, ran a network of hospitals for the elderly, mental health institutions, temporary accommodation for destitute families, and specialised centres for Holocaust survivors and children with special needs.

The sense of solidarity and responsibility that has always been at the core of the nursing profession prompted nurses to also offer their training and expertise overseas, however horrific the situation on the ground was. And indeed, one very early example was the Displaced Persons Camps that appeared across Europe in the bloodied aftermath of World War II. Since then, and to this day, army nurses continue to make up an integral part of search and rescue missions around the world.

That being said, not all trends that emerged from the Israeli nursing profession were off to a swimming start. One major example is the local Arab population’s difficult integration journey into the field, as seen in the story of Muhammed Abu Shah, who was the first within the Arab community to hold the position of Head of Nursing. When Abu-Shah, a qualified nurse who held a nursing degree was made Head of Nursing at the Geha Mental Health Institution in May of 1983, a group of around 50 nurses called a general strike and would spend the next year staunchly opposing the appointment. Abu-Shah bid his time, filed an appeal, and ultimately secured the role which he excelled at, before going on to have a thriving career, in the course of which he counselled and mentored many in his community who sought a career in nursing.

Today, around 24 percent of Israel’s nursing staff comprise members of the Arab community, with male Arab nurses making up nearly 20 percent of the sum total. Nursing, as a profession, gradually grew into a gateway through which various groups have been able to claim their rightful space within Israeli society.

From these various milestones, a portrait of the Israeli nurse begins to take shape: they are the unsung heroes behind the scenes, there at every critical juncture, stepping out to the frontline, unwaveringly, when most needed. When the COVID pandemic broke out in March 2020, it was Israel’s nurses who, within days, had set up massive. fully-functional underground hospital treatment wards. They provided the first point of contact for patients at a time when virtually no one knew anything about the virus, its risk factors, and potential ramifications. That same uncompromising fearlessness and efficiency also dominated the country’s COVID vaccination centres where in just under a month, nurses gave over five million Israelis their first jab and later, 4.5 million who returned for the second dose of the vaccine.

In June 2025, when the Iran-Israel conflict erupted, nurses yet again rose to the occasion, and with tireless efficiency set up safe underground spaces in hospitals across the country: within 48 hours those spaces became the temporary homes of the most critical care wards including maternity, trauma, children’s A&E, and others. It was thanks to the nurse practitioner’s resilience and tenacity that countless lives were saved and the public, in a time of grave danger and uncertainty, could still depend on a reliable standard of quality care.

Nurses were also behind various changes and advances in Israel’s National Health Service, and took part in many, then-and-now groundbreaking procedures from kidney and heart transplants that first began in Israel in the 1960s, to the most cutting-edge tech and AI innovations which nurses have been implementing across the National Health Service towards tackling a constantly revolving door of challenges including understaffing, care for an ever-growing ageing population, war, and pandemics.

Digitising the Health Service has brought nurses to the very fore of personalised, remote medicine. Dozens of nurse-led online communities have since emerged where senior nurses, covering a range of specialities, interact with tens of thousands of patients on various subjects such as pregnancy and childbirth, at all hours of the day. There are now also designated online communities for the nursing staff, themselves – safe spaces where nurses can chat amongst themselves, discuss work, advise their peers, collaborate, and also support one another through endless professional challenges, the often- overwhelming workload, and the alarming rise in violent, abusive behaviour from some patients and their escorts.

These creative, entrepreneurial tendencies have, more than once, found themselves on a collision course when it came to the question of the nurse’s autonomy vs. the doctor’s authority. In her book, Women Build a Nation, Prof. Margarit Shilo discusses the status of the nurse: “Is nursing its own independent field, complementary to the doctor’s work… or is it but an aid to the medical practitioner, never a peer?” she asks in the minutes of a 1938 staff meeting at the School of Nursing. Ephraim M. Bluestone, who was the head of Hadassah Hospital from 1926-1928, argued that “at times, patient care is far more crucial towards healing than the doctor’s work.” Dr. Aryeh Dostrovsky, however, disagreed and in 1937 said that “a nurse is but a doctor’s assistant,” whilst another one of his peers did not mince words when he decreed that “nurses need legs, arms, and eyes. They’re not here to think!”

The conflict between autonomy and subordinance continues to underscore the nursing profession. However, it is impossible to overstate the tremendous distance the field has already travelled, thus far, and continues to. This collection shines a light on the gradual change at play, as seen in nurses’ steadily-growing autonomy whereby many, nowadays, are already specialists in their respective fields, honing advanced clinical skills, branching out into subspecialities, developing comprehensive treatment plans, heading fully autonomous areas of medical care, and qualified to write up medical prescriptions.

Henrietta Szold once said, “specialism is the mother of compassion.” Her words, today, are embedded into the very DNA of the nurse’s pivotal status in the healthcare system – a consummate professional who liaises and dialogues, productively and critically, with doctors across the board; a bridge between patient and system, the latter of which nurses continue to play an instrumental part in shaping. The nurse’s key positioning in the hierarchy allows them to promote, if not spearhead a variety of trailblazing programmes that champion and foreground medical innovation, not to mention lead on action towards social change. The rollout of game-changing schemes such as virtual wards (aka ‘hospital at home’), home hospice care, crisis stabilisation units, and telemedicine (aka ‘telehealth’ – remote non-emergency patient care), to name but a few, enable patients to remain part of the community, and to continue to live safely, independently, and with dignity.

Also, the enabled presence and participation of disabled people, amputees, individuals with special needs, and others in the community, thanks to these forward-thinking schemes, brings about positive change in the community, all the while promoting diversity, inclusivity, and tolerance. Thus, not only does the dialogue between nurse and doctor evolve, as does the connection between nurse practitioner and public – which ultimately delivers on a stronger, more resilient self, community, and society.

Over a century after the Hadassah nurses first disembarked onto the future State of Israel, the revolutionary spirit of the nursing profession continues to thrive, lead, and innovate.

I would like to take this opportunity to offer my most heartfelt gratitude to all my interviewees, all of whom were above and beyond generous with their time and expertise, thereby making the story of Israeli nurses, as told in this collection, as comprehensive, diverse, and multilayered as possible: Prof. Hava Golander; Prof. Nira Bartal; Prof. Shifra Shvarts; Dr. Dorit Weiss; Dr. Shoshy Goldberg, National Chief Nurse, Ministry of Health, Israel; the late Dr. Pnina Romem whose book introduced me to Project Malben; Ilana Gens – Head Nurse of Public Health Division; Muhammed Abu Shah, Retired Head of Nursing at Shlavata Mental Health Centre; Dr. Kinneret Segal; Rabia Salame, Head Nurse at Emergency Department, Rambam Healthcare Campus; Hava Guetta, Chief Nursing Officer at the Maale Hacarmel Mental Health Medical Centre; Avishag Hendler, nurse at Kibbutz Yifat; Michal Yehudai Yedid, Director of the Infrastructure and Data Department, the Nursing Division at the Health Ministry; Tigist Mekonnen, Hospice Nurse at Sabar Health – Hospital at Home; Prof. Margalit Shilo; and Prof. Yoel Donchin.

Movie clips

Kaplan Prize Awarded to Family Health Center in Beit Shean

1963

Long before the State of Israel was established, the term “pioneering calling” was already commonplace which, if nothing else, is evidence of the general Jewish public’s utmost commitment to the Zionist dream: from your children’s nursery teacher, through your local bus driver, and all the way to then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion who laid out his social and moral ideology in his essay, ”The Pioneering Mission of the Arts” (The Center for Printed Hasbara [Printed Public Relations]) 1955) – indeed, this utopian ideal enthralled, engaged, and inspired vast swathes of society. It is, therefore, of little surprise that the term also popped up in an otherwise negligible newsreel story reporting on the 1963 Kaplan Award being handed to the medical staff of [national health service provider] Clalit HMO’s paediatric and family care centre (‘Tipat Halav’) in Beit She’an.“The team was given this award, owing to their extraordinary dedication that epitomised the very essence of a pioneering calling,” the narrator announces with great fanfare, as footage plays of the nurses bandaging up a toddler’s knee, or weighing a baby. And indeed, the nurses did all perform their jobs with the utmost devotion, not just to earn their wage, but as they also considered it an integral part of the Zionist vision, and the children – its future. Tipat Halav (Eng. ‘milk drop’) paediatric care centres, themselves, travelled a long distance, until eventually becoming a living, breathing part of the Zionist enterprise. Its origins date back to France, of all places, where the world’s first milk pasteurising and distribution station was set up, with the aim of raising strong, healthy babies who would go on to become Napoleon’s future soldiers. The novel concept soon spread globally and in early 20th century Jerusalem, it was Evelina de Rothschild who set up a healthcare fund that focused on milk distribution and helping new mothers and pregnant women, as part of the fight against infant mortality that was rife at the time. Just a few years later, thanks to the work and efforts of Henrietta Szold, two US nurses arrived in the country and set up its first-ever Tipat Halav care centre in Jerusalem, with a focus on preventative medicine and improving the living standards of both mothers and infants. Today, Israel is home to over a thousand Tipat Halav paediatric and maternal care centres across the country, where babies’ development is regularly monitored, and a range of services are available such as nutritional and breastfeeding help and support, and where specially-trained staff are employed to identify mothers who are at high risk of postnatal depression or domestic violence.

Cornerstone Laying of National Healthcare Building Honoring Zeev Jabotinsky in Jerusalem

1949

The 1949 cornerstone laying ceremony for national health service HMO, Leumit, named after Ze’ev Jabotinsky, took place in Jerusalem with all the typical Jabotinskian fanfare: esteemed guests all made their way through a gate decorated to the nines with Israeli flags; Prof. Joseph Klausner delivered his speech in the main forecourt, whilst behind him stood a portrait of the ever-stern-faced Jabotinsky. The huge audience then broke into rapturous applause. How was it, then, that the announcement of a new public HMO branch ended up being such a staunchly political event? The answer to that lies at the turn of the 20th century: contrary to migrants of the 1881-1903 wave of Jewish immigration (aka the ‘First Aliyah,’) their idealist Second Aliyah (1904-1914) successors were initially opposed to the concept of healthcare funded by the Baron [Rotschild] but soon, realised that building a habitable nation is quite simply, impossible, without an up-and-running health service. With that in mind, they began fundraising for donations from all the workers and with the money collected, set up a collective fund that was used to set up clinics by the fields [where everyone was working] – a scheme that later became known as the ‘Land of Israel’s Clalit Health Service.’ However, Clalit was set up as a health service for the workers and trade unionists, and certainly not for the third and fourth Aliyah immigrants who were predominantly through-and-through urbanites and would go on to establish the ‘Amamit’ (‘popular’) Health Service. Meanwhile the Revisionists, who were not about to team up with the socialists over in Clalit, set up the Leumit Health Service; as did members of the Maccabi Health Service who had quit Clalit only after learning that the HMO was also admitting Hapoel members. Nowadays, the public HMOs are forever coming out with cutting-edge digital innovations, trying to outdo their competitors with state-of-the-art apps that allow patients to schedule video consultations with specialist doctors, access and manage their medical records, prescriptions, and appointments on their phones, whilst also pouring vast sums of money into research institutions with the aim of locating high-risk patients and promoting trailblazing treatments and collaborations with leading tech firms. It seems hard to believe that just over a century ago, Clalit’s inaugural branch was operating out of a meek tent in the garden city community of Ein Ganim, where the country’s first workers had settled.

Footage of Refugees in the Displaced Persons Camps and European Cities Post World War II

Unknown date

The heart positively swells at the sight of the Tehran Children – a group of child Holocaust survivors who were smuggled out of Poland into Tehran and from there, still reeling from unfathomable trauma and grief, had to endure a long, arduous journey until eventually arriving in British Mandatory Palestine in 1943. Some reunited with distant relatives after their entire families had perished in the Holocaust, whereas others were either admitted as non-member child residents (aka ‘outside kids’) into various kibbutzim and agricultural communities, or taken to the Atlit Detention Camp – a British internment camp in the north of Israel that, until 1950, was used for temporary migrant accommodation. The nurses, who were there to welcome the children at the railway station, looked after them with the utmost devotion at the detention camp. Some even went on to volunteer in Europe’s postwar Displaced Persons’ Camps. Nurse Mila Rosen, for instance, cared for the Tehran Children in Atlit before she was sent, in 1947, to set up mother and child clinics across Germany’s displaced persons’ camps. In Atlit, she came face-to-face with children who had lost their parents, whilst in Germany she met bereaved parents whose children had all been killed. Nurse Zvia Lehar-Hershkovits volunteered at the camp after the death of her husband, a Jewish resistance soldier. In her letters, she recounted the famine amongst the Holocaust survivor residents of the DP Camp, and their great despair over the delays in obtaining travel visas to Palestine. Nurses, too, were not spared the harsh conditions at the DP Camps. They were far from home and their families and had to deal with impossibly difficult challenges, such as caring for child Holocaust survivors, or working opposite German doctors, Healthcare History scholar, Dr. Dorit Weiss explains. “What kept them going was their dual sense of mission – striving to heal and to offer help, whilst also considering themselves partners in the collective vision who were actively working on its behalf, and towards its fulfilment.”

Handicapped Immigrants produce Handicrafts at MLBN Centers

1952

The ‘Malben’ Programme – centres for the treatment of immigrants in need – that was set up in 1949 and remained active for the next 25 years, was one of the most important, comprehensive programmes to have operated in the country, essentially since its foundation. Jewish immigrants from all corners of the world flocked to the newly established State of Israel by the droves, and it was obvious that there would have to be certain care mechanisms in place, ready to receive and care for elderly and disabled immigrants, tubercular patients, the mentally ill, and the blind. At the time, Israel did not yet have an up-and-running National Health Service, which is where the JDC (aka the Jewish Joint Organisation), along with the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government all teamed up to set up this programme that would go on to help over a quarter of a million people across 23 different institutions. This clip, showing Project Malben residents weaving carpets and mats, and making an assortment of decorative artefacts, captures Malben nurses’ utterly dedicated and dignified care, led by Prof. Rebecca (Becky) Bergman who, later in life, would be awarded an Israel Prize for her work. Bergman’s philosophy was that it wasn’t just immigrants’ physical health that deserved exceptional care, but also their mental health, motivation, and sense of achievement – all of which would allow them to feel whole, and capable of integrating and assimilating into the community.

An Independence Day Parade by the IDF

1952

No self-respecting Tel Avivian of the day would have let themselves miss out on the IDF Parade, marking the nascent State of Israel’s fourth Independence Day celebrations. On 30 April 1952, at approximately 4.30pm, the IDF Orchestra kicked off the festivities, leading the parade and followed by the various corps, tanks, and artillery weapons. Soldiers gave then-Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, and Speaker of the Knesset, Yosef Sprinzak, a full military salute as they marched past them. Meanwhile nurses, ever an integral part of the military apparatus, going back to the days of the Resistance, stand out in their crisp, white uniform although, interestingly, the majority of them seldom wore their uniform, and would mostly only ever be seen in it at official functions, or when hitchhiking. According to nurse and historian, Dr. Ronen Segev, who is also the author of the book A Two-Layer Uniform, the state and the army would regularly fight over nurses’ services until eventually, they reached an agreement in 1953 whereby army nurses became the domain and responsibility of the Department of Health. Consequently, countless army nurses got their training in civilian hospitals where they also spent the duration of their military service and were effectively no different to civilian nurses; save for the fact that they were younger and more predominantly single, and it was therefore a lot easier, not to mention cheaper to stick them with weekend and holiday shifts. With time, recognition of army nurses’ role and contribution started to grow; in no small part, owing to their regular involvement in disaster relief and humanitarian aid missions. However, their daily work did slightly fade from public consciousness which, Dr. Segev files under “professional humility.” Nowadays, there are some nascent signs of change in terms of documenting and researching army nurses and their work, alongside the expanding of their authority across multiple areas however, this remains a lengthy process indeed, Segev highlights. “When it comes to acknowledging nurses’ contribution to the IDF, there is still a long road ahead,” he says.

Convalescent Home Nurse

1959

Israel, 1959. The country is in the throes of a brutal austerity period. Citizens must live under harsh government restrictions on the purchase of food, clothing, and various other products. At the time, the ultimate treat one could aspire to was a holiday at a convalescent home run by country’s National Trade Union (‘Histadrut’) or the National Health Service, where dedicated doctors and nurses made sure that holidaymakers took the time to sunbathe, go for walks in the fresh air, and indulge in excessively rich menus (reaching upwards of 5,000 calories, a day) – by all accounts, luxuries for the 1950s Israeli. Daily weigh-ins were strictly adhered to, to make sure that guests were indeed eating well, and gaining weight.In the early days of convalescent homes, guests were not necessarily of a wealthy pedigree – in fact many were Holocaust survivors, trade unionists, patients recovering from operations, and postnatal mothers. Through the years, several convalescent homes rebranded themselves as posh, luxury hotels such as Zichron Yaakov’s Elma Arts Complex Luxury Hotel (originally the Mivtachim Convalescent Home) and Haifa’s Carmel Forest Spa Resort (originally a convalescent and rehabilitation home for Holocaust survivors.)Indeed, even today, a stay at National Health Service provider, Clalit HMO’s main convalescent home at the top of Safed’s Mount Caanan (as seen in this clip) seems like a positively restorative experience, for both body and mind.

Young Man With Kidney Transplant Released From Hospital

1965

In 1964, Prof. Morris Levy performed Israel’s first-of-its-kind kidney transplant that saw Nezira Levy donate a kidney to her 18-year-old son, Meir. The successful procedure was later celebrated at Beilinson Hospital with mother, son, and dedicated medical staff all in attendance. Tragically, Levy died of an infection the following week. And though it would be another 23 years before the next kidney transplant took place in 1987, the 1960s and two subsequent decades were underscored by huge medical tech advances that ushered in countless healthcare innovations such as intensive care and trauma units, heart transplants, the country’s first-ever dialysis unit, and so much more. Professor Hava Golander, Chair of the Israeli Society for the History of Nursing tells us: “The need for skilled work became that much more pressing and so, consequently, the level [and quality] of nursing had to catch up.” In 1968, Tel Aviv University launched the inaugural Qualified Nursing BSc programme. In its early years, the programme mainly comprised tutors, supervisors, and long-time nurses. “Thus, the whole field was given a new lease of life,” Prof. Golander explains. “Suddenly there was space for all tutors and supervisors to come together that facilitated intergenerational and interinstitutional discourse. Collaborations came about, as did some healthy bit of competition.” Nursing, as a profession, was reborn.“Whereas in the past, nurses’ opinion held little to no sway, nowadays, a nurse’s knowledge and experience is hugely important and highly regarded. Then, as now, the onus is on us to excel and keep the whole field moving forward for our successors,” Golander concludes.

Measles Vaccination Campaign Opens in Israel

1967

At the height of a nationwide measles vaccination drive, Israeli public health nurses feature in this short clip that’s all loving hands and mildly apprehensive toddlers. The work of public health nurses is famously taken for granted; like the background running app you’ve all but forgotten about: they are the ones in charge of the country’s routine childhood immunisation programme across at all paediatric and maternity care centres (‘Tipat Halav’), monitoring infant growth and child development up to the age of six and later, seeing the children again in schools for periodic screenings and various other health-focused schemes. National Supervising Nurse at the Public Health Services, Ms. Ilana Gans tells us: “whilst the majority of nurses will be treating patients with some disease or another, our focus is on a healthy demographic which is why, more often than not, we will identify potential issues at an [early enough] stage that would allow us to tackle them swiftly and effectively.” Examples of the above are innumerable. Look no further than the Year 8 student who, during a routine school health screening, was stunned to learn that he was about to lose his sight in his left eye. Following a series of tests, he was diagnosed with traumatic optic neuropathy and after a highly complex procedure, his eyesight was successfully saved. “We diagnose conditions such as Developmental Language Disorder or coeliac-related weight loss, which parents can also fail to recognise as they lack the necessary knowledge and experience,” Gans adds. It’s this very experience and expertise that also allow nurses to pick up on highly sensitive matters such as postnatal depression and domestic violence, to name but a few. “Early identification,” Nurse Gans emphasises, “followed by sensitive treatment and care can be truly life changing.”

A Visit to Maternity Ward in Tel HaShomer Hospital

1969

From the glove-donning male obstetrician supervising the procedure, to the emotional father anxiously standing outside the maternity theatre – childbirth, according to ‘A Tour of the Tel Hashomer Maternity Ward’ (Carmel Herzliya Reel, 1969) is unequivocally a man’s business, whereas in fact, midwifery – now more so than ever – is one of the most independent professions in the field of nursing, according to Dr. Kinneret Segal, Director of Nursing at the Beilinson Women’s Hospital. “Usually, the midwife will be looking after two patients at the same time, staying right at their side from the second they come through the doors of the maternity theatre and essentially, running point on their care – she will be intimately familiar with the patient, both personally and medically, identifying their needs and putting together a bespoke care plan for every woman – from examining the patient and confirming that she is, in fact, in active labour, to closely monitoring the stages of labour right up to when the baby is delivered and the placenta is safely out, and looking after both mother and newborn, postnatally,” she explains. Dr. Segal describes a tremendous sense of collective pride amongst midwives. “Midwives are emotionally invested in their patients and in each and every birth. It’s all very fast-paced, and when it’s an emergency and decisions must be taken swiftly, you have to show up with every ounce of skill, focus, and professionalism you have in you.” Added up, the above can lead to burnout and at times, even secondary trauma in the aftermath of complicated births; however, statistics ultimately suggest that the majority of midwives rarely quit the field. “Sometimes, midwives will opt to mix it [the job] up a bit but for the most part, they tend to stick around in theatre, right up to retirement, because it’s a place that’s all about vitality. The exact same oxytocin produced by women in labour also occurs in midwives,” Segal explains. “You’re in there with every fibre of your being, and despite all the challenges and various complexities, you can’t help but feel significant. That you matter.”

As Always, Hadassa

1974

For the medical staff at Haifa’s Rambam Healthcare Campus’s A&E unit, clocking into a new shift is no different to diving, headfirst, into the great unknown. “Some shifts start off pretty chill then, other times, you’d be all over the place, treating serious injuries and doing CPR and what have you, from the word ‘go’,” Nurse Assistant Rabia Salame tells us. “Sometimes, we could be juggling an injured kid, a flatlining elderly patient, and a heavily dilated woman in labour, all at the same time.”Diving into the archival footage tells viewers of the harsh realities of life in the hospital’s A&E department: from the nonstop pressure and unforgiving workload, to the unexpected forever knocking at your door – in normal times and certainly, during emergencies. As Always, Hadassah, a PR film set in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Centre at the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, is teeming with that inevitable sense of urgency and utmost devotion to the job and its gruelling demands. The camera follows David, who was about to marry the love of his life that week, but was then injured in one of the Suez Canal battles and had to be airlifted to hospital, in a military helicopter, and be taken into emergency surgery to try and save his leg. The nurses at the hospital must deal with the usual stress and overcrowding, as well as some unexpected curveballs like a sudden power cut which means they must now work by candlelight.Salame can certainly empathise: “Watching from the sidelines, it does seem damn near impossible – there’s no stability, no routine to speak of. But the fact is, anyone in emergency medicine is an action and adrenaline junkie. When we’re dealing with a major incident such as GSW [gunshot wound] or road accident victims, each and every one of us knows their part, and does what they’re trained for in the simplest, most straightforward way possible.”Sometimes, however, despite their best efforts, the team are unable to revive a patient and are then tasked with delivering the very worst news. Then, every so often, they also manage to pull off the impossible. When Salame recounts some of the actions he and the team have had to take in order to save the life of a man who had been stabbed through the heart, or another who had suffered cardiac arrest just outside A&E, his voice takes on the most extraordinary sense of vitality. “We use all of our skills to meet the challenges we are faced with, head on, and when we’re able to save a patient who’s in a bad way – well, there’s no better feeling in the world than that.”

A Painting Exhibition at the Abarbanel Mental Health Center

1959

The eagle-eyed viewer will be highly aware of the many details that feature in the clip ‘Art Exhibition at the Abarbanel Mental Health Centre’ (1959) – from the bold, expressive artworks by the patients to the directorial decision not to show their faces and in particular, the following choice of words: art provides Abarbanel’s inpatients with the “appropriate clinical atmosphere,” with the aim of “extricating the patient from their imaginary world and reinstating them into normal life.” But what is perhaps the clip’s most prominent aesthetic choice is the total absence of daylight – thereby resulting in a type of darkness very much on par with the typically harsh, fictionalised representations of mental health centres in film and literature: from the high-risk wards and double security doors to nurses forcing tablets down patients’ throats, effectively isolating them from the outside world, and so on.If, historically, the nurse was perceived as the guard-cum-gatekeeper, policing patients’ every move behind the closed doors of the psychiatric ward then nowadays, the dial has shifted dramatically. Chief Nursing Officer at the Maale Carmel Mental Health Centre, Hava Guetta, tells us: “In the nineties, Israeli mental healthcare underwent a seismic change that saw primary patient care rerouted from psychiatric hospitals into the community. This change, at its core, was driven by a humanistic-led approach that saw the mental health patient just like any other individual, as opposed to a diseased liability that needed containing behind lock and key.” These changes in ideology and philosophy also led to a reimagining, as it were, of the nurse’s role: “nurses went on to acquire a range of advanced clinical skills such as trauma-informed interventions or personalised care, in addition to emerging subspecialities like eating disorders, gynaecological care, children and youth, addictions, or Complex PTSD [aka C-PTSD],” Guetta adds. Through the years, the role of the mental health nurse has evolved into that of a key figure in the relationship between patient and healthcare system, and the one at the helm of game-changing new treatment models such as virtual wards or crisis stabilisation units, to name but a few. But without a doubt, the greatest advent in the profession is the rise of the specialist mental health nurse. Guetta describes it as a major milestone indeed: “The specialist nurse is trained, amongst other things, to perform a comprehensive clinical assessment, keep patients’ prescription medication in check, and refer them to a range of treatment and rehabilitation services. In that, she becomes a truly transformative force to be reckoned with.”