Yoseftal Medical Center is a hospital in Eilat, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

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Yoseftal Hospital, founded in 1968, is the southernmost hospital in Israel and the only hospital covering the southern Negev desert. It is named after Giora Yoseftal

Giora Yoseftal

Dr Giora Yoseftal was an Israeli politician who held several ministerial portfolios in the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:Born in Nuremberg in Germany, Yoseftal was a member of the Yiddisher Yudenbund youth movement in his teens...

. It is Israel's smallest general hospital with 65 beds. Economic problems led to proposals for the hospital's closure; however, after protests from area residents and local government officials, who argued that not having a hospital within a 3-hour radius would be highly dangerous, it was decided to keep the hospital open.

The hospital is run by the Clalit

Clalit

Clalit, also Klalit is one of Israel's leading health service organizations. Widely known as Kupat Holim Clalit, it was established in 1911 as a mutual aid society...

 health maintenance organization. It has a fully equipped recompression chamber for treating diving accidents. The hospital also has kidney dialysis facilities open to vacationers and local residents.