Thomas Baldwin highlights the works of a charity behind a major hospital in the hometown of Jesus which is using a milestone anniversary for a special appeal.

THE Christian charity running a major hospital in the hometown of Jesus is celebrating a major landmark with a new appeal to help it expand its emergency room. The Nazareth Trust runs the Nazareth Hospital EMMS, one of the oldest hospitals in the Middle East and the largest in Nazareth. Tracing its roots back to 1861, today it is a general hospital with Nazareth’s main emergency room, intensive care, surgical units and other services helping tens of thousands of patients every year.

Now the Trust is hoping to mark its 160th anniversary by beginning a major development of its emergency room (ER). Already approved by the Israeli Ministry of Health, the project will provide a fortified state-of-the-art ER, with more than triple the existing number of stations (rising from 21 to 70) and improved emergency vehicle access.

Phase one involves relocating the chapel, which will free up the space for the new ER, and creating a new uniquely-designed chapel reflecting on the charity’s 160 years of Christian ministry in the hometown of Jesus.

To fund the development, the charity has launched an appeal to find 160 people willing to give £100 a month for 60 months. This would raise enough to enable the rebuilding of the chapel. They have also begun a new appeal urging people to leave money to the Trust in their will.

Richard Mayhew, CEO of the Nazareth Trust, said: “As we celebrate our 160th anniversary, I’ve been looking back on the past, and I see the faces of those who laid the foundation of our Christian ministry and those who helped it grow. Now I wonder, what legacy are we going to leave for the future generations of Nazareth?

Specifically, the Emergency Room appeal will have a great impact on that legacy.

Expanding our ER to 70 beds will allow us to provide vastly improved care for our thousands of patients. I cannot wait to see what the future holds. I invite all those who can, to join us so we can build it up together.”

The Trust is one of the legacy charities of the work of Dr Pacradooni Kaloost Vartan, trained by the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (EMMS), who in 1861 established a dispensary in Nazareth. Six years later that became an eight-bed hospital. In 1904, EMMS funded the purchase of 25 acres of land for the building of a new hospital, which opened in 1912. The building and the services offered there expanded throughout the 20th century.

Nazareth Hospital EMMS

In 2001 EMMS split into two charities, with EMMS Nazareth running the Nazareth operation. In 2010, it began operating under the name the Nazareth Trust. (The other charity, EMMS International, provides health services in several countries in Africa and Asia.)

In addition to the hospital, the Trust runs a school of nursing, itself nearly 100 years old, the volunteer scheme SERVE Nazareth, and Nazareth Village, an authentic first century farm and archaeologically accurate recreation of the hometown of Jesus.

The former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Very Rev Colin Sinclair, and his wife Ruth are longstanding supporters of the Trust. They said: “Our desire to support the Nazareth Trust is the recognition of it as a beacon of light and hope in a troubled part of the world.” 

For more information visit nazarethtrust.org