The international medical conference of the Joint Distribution Committee closed here this week-end after hearing a report that the JDC’s health and welfare program had established 41 hospitals and institutions in Israel and had treated 35,000 persons in those institutions.
Dr. Boris Pliskin, JDC medical director in Israel, who detailed the work of the JDC program for aiding the tubercular, chronically ill, crippled and aged in Israel, reported that the institutions established by Malben included: two TB hospitals, a TB rehabilitation center, a home for aged tuberculars, four institutions for the chronically ill, and 14 homes for aged men and women.
Israel presents a unique opportunity for the study of health problems affecting Jews from various countries and for studying geriatrics, speakers at the conference declared. They pointed out that the Malben institutions have made a solid contribution to two difficult problems: care of aged and care of the chronically ill.
Dr. Jean Groen of the Wilhelmina Hospital in Amsterdam said that nowhere but in Israel is there such a concentration of aged representing many different countries and many different cultures. He spoke of the research opportunity offered by the Malben village for aged where Yemenite and European Jews are gathered. He drew attention to the fact that research in this village had established that few aged Yemenite Jews suffered from heart, disease, which is rife among European Jews.
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