May 11, 2023 – Today, in an exciting and historical meeting, Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam) in Haifa, Israel, signed a collaborative agreement with its sister city – San Francisco, USA.

Haifa and San Francisco have been sister cities since 1973, and The San Francisco-Haifa Sister City Committee has visited Haifa several times since then. Today, a 30-person delegation from San Francisco led by the city’s mayor, the Honorable London Breed, visited Rambam. The purpose of the visit was to sign a collaborative agreement for emergency preparedness training, coordinated by the American Friends of Rambam (AFORAM) – West Coast leadership.

Professor Miki Halberthal, Rambam’s general director and CEO, Professor Rafi Beyar, president of Rambam’s International Friends Associations, and senior Rambam executives and physicians welcomed the delegation.

Rambam’s Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency, and Mass Casualty Situations (MCS) shares its accumulated knowledge with other healthcare professionals in Israel and worldwide. The Teaching Center offers training aimed at all professionals involved in the organization and treatment of mass casualty incidents.

Following discussions, the collaborative agreement between Rambam and the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response was signed by Professor Halberthal and Mayor Breed. Mayor Breed and Mr. Bob Tandler, of the San Francisco-Haifa Sister City Committee spoke of their delight in forming this collaboration.

One of this collaboration’s goals is to train San Francisco healthcare and emergency workers. The agreement will also facilitate interaction, exchange of ideas, and informational resources to benefit the people of these cities.

The visit concluded with a tour of the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital, the largest of its kind in the world, which has become an international model for emergency preparedness.