title: [THE VALLEY IS A DREAM"--ON THE HISTORY OF THE NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT IN THE HA'EMEK MEDICAL CENTER].
abstract: The establishment of the Cooperative Merhavia in 1910 marked the beginning of the settlement in the Jezreel Valley. The medical services started to develop almost simultaneously, with a small number of physicians and nurses who came in the wake of the first settlers and set up infirmaries in the region's communities mainly to treat malaria and other infectious diseases. The Ha'Emek Medical Center, which celebrates 90 years since its foundation, was the first hospital of Kupat Holim. It started out in a few temporary buildings in Kibbutz Ein Harod and was then transferred to its present location in Afula. Records of treatment of preterm babies go as far back as the 1950s. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Afula was one of the first in Israel and, for many years, served as a referral center for hospitals in the North and Sharon regions, until similar departments were gradually founded. The history of the Neonatal Department of the Ha'Emek Medical Center is described, on the background of the development of the medical services, since the earliest settlement in the Jezreel Valley and the foundation of the hospital in Afula.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Reich
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D006761:Hospitals / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal / Q000266:history*; D007557:Israel