Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem has unveiled a new unit, The Talya Center for Young Women with Breast Cancer, and that is good news for women carrying the BRCA genes, which increase cancer risk. The opening was accompanied by a memorial event for Talya Balilius Turjeman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36 and succumbed to the disease a decade later.
A donation by the Balilius family made it possible to establish the Talya Center.
The Director-General of the hospital, Prof. Jonathan Halevy, told Arutz Sheva:
"We are convening here today a large audience at the main auditorium of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, in order to memorialize Talya Balilius Turjeman, who passed away exactly today, two years ago, from breast cancer, at the young age of 46, and she fought this cancer for the decade before her death.
"I'm very grateful to the Balilius family, for helping us to establish a new breast cancer unit that will concentrate on breast cancer in young and very young women, which is a kind of an entity that calls for a special approach, both from the diagnostic point, the genetics and the therapeutic aspect. This is definitely good news for the community at large, and specifically for women who carry the BRCA genes, that expose them to breast cancer at a younger age.
"Shaarei Tzedek today is a 1,000 bed hospital, one of the largest in Israel, that serves the Jerusalem community in particular and the Israeli population at large, with all the gamma – the spectrum – of medical and surgical services, both diagnostic and therapeutic, led by leading physicians. Many of them are internationally renowned, most of them are nationally renowned, and we take great pride in that, especially seeing as today we are adding another unit, headed by a leading physician, Dr. Shani Paluch-Shimon, to memorialize Talya Balilius Turjeman."