Saint John Eye Hospital Group

The Hospital Group is based in Jerusalem and is the main provider of eye care in the Palestinian territories.

The original hospital opened by the Order of St John in 1882 on the Bethlehem Road just south of the old city of Jerusalem.

Lechmere and his wife were among the founders of Venerable Order of St John and had travelled several times to Jerusalem where they witnessed the need of its residents for eye care.

Following the establish of the British Mandate for Palestine, the architect Clifford Holliday was hired to renovate the building.

In the 1960s, after the hospital moved to its current location, the Clifford Holliday wing became an arts and crafts center, henceforth known as the Jerusalem House of Quality [he].

The hospital's present building was opened in 1960 at Nashashibi Street in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

It has a 49-bed capacity and is staffed by both foreign and local specialist surgeons, doctors, paramedics, overseas medical volunteers and nurses.

The hospital provides cataract and laser eye surgery to treat diabetic retinopathy, and serves the 640,000 people that live in and around Hebron, including the semi-nomadic Bedouins of the Negev Desert.

St John nurse with Gazan glaucoma patient.
The hospital building with its two towers in its early years ( c. 1890s )
The hospital's first annual report 1883
Panoramic view of the hospital (left) and St Andrew's Church (top right) in 1930
New wing seen from St Andrew's Church (1934–39)
Clifford Holliday's new wing, today's Jerusalem House of Quality
Memorial in Muristan Street, Old City , marking the location of the medieval hospital, as well as the second site of the modern hospital (1949–1960)
St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group's Jerusalem Hospital at Sheik Jarrah
The St John Hebron Hospital opened in November 2015