Soroka Medical Center

Soroka University Medical Center (, HaMerkaz HaRefu'i Soroka), a part of the Clalit Health Services Group, is the general hospital of Beersheba, Israel, it serves as the central hospital of the region and provides medical services to approximately one million residents of the South, from Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon to Eilat. Soroka has 1,173 hospital beds, and spread over in the center of Beer-Sheva. Soroka provides medical care to members of all communities in the region, including Negev Bedouins and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is a teaching hospital affiliated with the faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, whose campus is adjacent to the hospital. History Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Medical Corps established a temporary military hospital in one of the Ottoman government buildings in Beersheva. A year later, the hospital was transferred to a British government compound, where it was run by the Hadassah Medical Association and named after Dr. Chaim Yassky. In 1949, Clalit Health Fund of the Hebrew Workers in Eretz Israel opened a clinic in the city to serve citizens who were members of the Histadrut. This clinic required hospital services for continued treatment. The nearest hospital was the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, but it was relatively far away, and patients had to travel and endure the poor road conditions of the time until they received treatment.