A decades-long partnership between hospitals in Hackney and Haifa that has enabled dozens of London nurses to travel to Israel to learn vital medical skills could be threatened by the Green Party’s plans to end the twinning agreement between the two boroughs.
Approximately 80 nurses from the north London hospital took part in the scheme over several decades.
But in a letter to the mayor of Haifa, Hackney's mayor Zoë Garbett said the council had agreed to the formal termination of its twinning agreement with the northern Israeli city, and “all associated municipal ties”.
Although the relationship between the two hospitals exists independently of the official twinning arrangement, there are concerns that the Green council's decision to end the civic partnership could jeopardise the long-running exchanges that have benefited staff at Homerton Hospital.
Rambam Hospital in Haifa and Hackney's Homerton Hospital have been twinned since the cities partnered in 1968, with formal week-long medical exchanges taking place between the two institutions since the 1980s.
The programme enabled London nurses to observe Israeli medical practices, especially those in Rambam’s renowned accident and emergency department, that could be brought back to the NHS.
Samantha Rose, trustee of British Friends of Rambam, described it as “an exchange of learning” and said the “multicultural diversity” of the two boroughs made for a natural partnership.
Rose said the trips, which paused during the pandemic and have yet to restart, were free for participants, subsidised by the charity.
Over the years, Rambam hosted 10 separate exchanges, with groups of eight nurses taking part.
Anita Alexander-Passe, Director of British Friends of Rambam Medical Centre, explained how the partnership first came about.
“I used to go the synagogue in Hackney… And there it was suggested that we would do something with Rambam for the Homerton hospital.
“Rambam hospital was associated with the British government under the British Mandate. The hospital was originally based in a monastery in Haifa.”
Martin Sugarman, chairman of the Hackney Anglo-Israel Friendship Association (HAIFA), said that in 1968, the local council decided, together with Jewish and non-Jewish members of the local community, to establish the twinning with Haifa.
The exchanges between the hospitals were designed to give nurses from both institutions the opportunity to learn from one another.
Sugarman said: “Formerly these were social visits for getting to know people in another country and city, like all traditional twinnings.
“We decided to make [the twinning] practical and learning visits.”
He described how medical staff “shadowed” each other, and “lectures were arranged whereby visitors spoke formally to a host group of medical staff.
“Homerton staff reported very useful experiences with trauma work in gun and knife wounds re military cases very uncommon in UK, and Rambam about dealing with Orthodox Jewish patients in Hackney.
"Often returning groups gave a presentation of their visit to invited audiences and staff in Hackney and Haifa and described what they had learnt,” Sugarman said.
Last month, Garbett – who was elected mayor of the east London borough in May – apologised after giving the city of Haifa until October 7 to respond to plans to end their long-standing twinning scheme.
The Hackney mayor had written to Haifa’s Mayor Yona Yahav informing him that Hackney Council intends to end the relationship between the two cities.
The initial choice of the third anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 massacre as a deadline had been described as “staggeringly insensitive” by Phil Rosenberg, President, Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Garbett subsequently retracted that letter and offered a new deadline of October 14.
“The inclusion of this date was a deeply regretful oversight,” she said, offering “my sincere apologies” for the “insensitive and serious mistake”.
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