RAMLA, Israel – When the sirens warn of incoming rockets splitting the skies, Israel’s national blood bank goes on high alert to keep the country’s blood supply safe. The heavy blood processing machines, plasma freezers and centrifuges are transferred to a bomb shelter in the basement, a cumbersome operation that takes 10 to 12 hours.
That’s going to change.
By the end of the year, the blood bank will move to a bright, state-of-the-art underground facility built to withstand chemical, biological and conventional weapons, including a direct hit from a large missile, as well as earthquakes and cyber-attacks.
With war in Europe underscoring the fragility of hospitals and other essential facilities, the new, nearly-completed $135 million facility is described by officials as the world’s best-protected known blood bank.
“It will save the lives of our loved ones, our frontline workers and our soldiers in times of routine emergencies and conflicts,” said Benny Gantz, Israel’s defense minister, at the building’s dedication ceremony, “and it will serve as a model for the world.”
Since the late 1980s, the central blood bank has been housed in a stately but increasingly impractical facility on the Sheba Medical Center campus in suburban Tel Aviv. The glass walls and panoramic windows flood the building with light.
But in recent years, as the Tel Aviv area increasingly became the target of rocket attacks, the building was assessed as unsafe.
“We had 2006, 2008, 2014, etc., etc.”, said Prof. Eilat Shinar, the director of blood services for Magen David Adom, the Israeli emergency service responsible for national blood reserves. conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza.
During Israel’s deadly conflict with militant groups in Gaza in 2014, dozens of technicians were sequestered for 52 days in the cramped underground chambers to ensure a steady supply of blood to both the country’s civilian hospitals and the military.
In addition, Israel sits on two seismic faults that in the event of a major earthquake would leave only the lobby of the existing center intact.
The new facility — the Marcus National Blood Services Center, named after American philanthropist Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, and his wife, Billi, who donated $35 million to the project — is located in Ramla, a central city. at the crossroads of several of the country’s major highways, close to Ben-Gurion International Airport and the Army Home Front Command headquarters.
The operation will move from the old to the new in phases in the coming months. The new center has three floors above ground and three below, with the processing lab, engine rooms, electrical generators and blood cellar all underground.
The vault, 15 feet down, is encased in concrete and steel and has a separate air supply and filter system. Moshe Noyovich, the engineer overseeing the project, said the inventory of blood components stored in the vault should be enough for four or five days of war.
The main generator room is behind another set of massive blast doors, one of about 80 blast doors in the new building, some with airlocks and security chambers in between.
Israel’s population has grown from about 4.3 million to over 9 million since the late 1980s. The new facility will be able to process double the amount of blood, a capacity that is expected to be sufficient for the next 30 years.
The building’s planners rely on the facility’s tons of concrete and reinforced steel to protect the country’s blood supply in the event of war. But for the record, they also attached a small plastic-cased mezuza to the door frame leading to the vault.
