The Makassed Islamic Charitable Society was founded in 1956 by a group of benefactors,
citizens of Jerusalem, in service of the people of Jerusalem especially because the city was hit
by a recession following the catastrophe (Nakba) of 1948 and its citizens were in need of
assistance in the fields of medicine and education in order to help them remain rooted on their
land in Jerusalem.
The Society was officially established on 21/2/1956. Its constitution stated that its services
must reach every citizen regardless of gender, color, race, and religious, political or social
affiliations and beliefs.
Its constitution also specified its main goal as follows “to assist people in all aspects of life
and to offer them the educational and health services needed by establishing hospitals,
polyclinics and educational institutions.”
Makassed Islamic Charitable Society Hospital was founded in 1968Year
The Society’s Institutions:
The Society runs and supervises three main institutions; each of them having its own budget.
These three institutions are:
1 –Makassed Islamic Charitable Hospital
The Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem operates under the auspices of the Makassed Islamic Charitable Society. Founded in 1968 and starting as a 60-bed unit, the Hospital has expanded during its life to its current size, licensed for 250 beds. It is one of the main referral hospitals for the Palestinian community of Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza Strip providing a range of specialties including:
Internal Medicine (Cardiology, Endocrinology, Pulmonology, and Nephrology)
General and specialty Surgery (including Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery, Adult Open Heart Surgery, Vascular and Thoracic Surgery)
Paediatric Cardiac Surgery Center
Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Foetal Medicine, Paediatrics, Neonatology
Radiology
The Hospital has a 20-bed Emergency Room and many out-patients clinics. In addition, Makassed also serves as a teaching hospital in association with Al-Quds University and provides research facilities.
The Society and its elected and administrative bodies initiated the establishment of the outpatient polyclinics (medical centers) in Jerusalem and its suburbs. Their number reached 7 in the 1990s and they were distributed between the old city of Jerusalem, Ram, Sur Baher, Ezaria , Jabal Al Mukabber, Beer Nabala and Abu Dees.
The year 2009 witnessed a visible growth and expansion of the Society’s Medical Centers. A new medical center was opened in Beer Nabala, which offered its emergency services 24 hours a day, just like Abu Dees’ emergency center, which was established in 2008 and was operating around the clock as well.
Makassed’s outpatient clinics received and treated 41,046 patients in 2014, a rise from 38,893 in 2013, distributed as follows: Obstetrics and Gynecology (11,000 cases), Internal Medicine (7,600), Orthopedics (7,000), Pediatrics (4,500), General Surgery (2,600), Urology (1,600), Neurosurgery (1,500) and other specialized surgeries such as pediatric, cardiothoracic, facial, oral and plastic surgery (1,900).
3 – The College of Nursing:
Makassed’s Nursing College was founded in 1974. In the span of 18 years, until 1992, it graduated 400 nurses and midwives, who are currently employed in different hospitals around Palestine. Work at the Nursing College was discontinued in 1992 but in the year 2000, Makassed Society relaunched the Nursing Program and the school was adopted as a Junior Community College, offering an associate degree in nursing sciences and graduating, by the year 2010, 235 nurses, holders of a Junior College degree.
In 2010, the college received full accreditation from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education to become a university college granting its graduates a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Nursing following four years of study. In mid-June 2014, the first batch of undergraduate students from this university college graduated; they consisted of 34 nurses. Consequently, the number of graduates per year will increase to eventually reach 50 nurses.
