About 4,000 aged, ill and handicapped newcomers to Israel are now under the care of the Joint Distribution Committee in hospitals, sanatoria, old age homes and other medical and custodial care institutions throughout the Jewish State, it was reported today by Dr. Lee Janis, J.D.C. overseas medical director.
An additional 3,500 ” hard cores,” the J.D.C. medical director indicated, are still waiting in Europe until the facilities of Malben, J.D.C’s agency in the Jewish State, can be expanded sufficiently to care for them. By the end of 1951, he said, Malben is expected to have some 7,000 men, women and children under its care.
Dr. Janis, who has just returned to the United States after a survey of J.D.C medical installations in Europe and Israel, indicated that the most significant Malben achievement to date has been registered in the field of tuberculosis care. ” In the course of some 15 months of operation,” he said, “Malben has been able to hospitalize more than 1,100 TB patients. Of this number, more than 300 have already been discharged, as their illness became quiescent. However, I would estimate that there are at least 3,000 cases of tuberculosis in Israel today which require hospitalization, and for whom there are no facilities yet available.”
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