Origin from 1882
An ophthalmic care charity founded in Jerusalem in 1882 as a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, providing free and low-cost eye care in an area with no universal national health service. The group operates its main hospital in Jerusalem, a clinic at Anabta in the northern West Bank, a hospital in Hebron and, since 2016, a hospital in Gaza City that grew out of a clinic opened there in 1992, treating over 135,000 patients a year irrespective of race, religion or ability to pay.
Facts
Finances
Institutional Wealth or FinancesSt John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group's own trustees' annual report and accounts, filed with and published by the UK Charity Commission, report total income of 13,917,000 pounds sterling against total expenditure of 10,427,000 pounds sterling, for the year ended 31 December 2024, a surplus of roughly 3.5 million pounds sterling for the year. 1 Basis of the Wealth Figure Financial Disclosure RegimeSt John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group is, as a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, itself registered as a charity with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, required to file its own annual trustees' report and accounts separately from the wider Order's. 1 Wealth Figure As Of Year Origins
Origin Period FounderNo single individual founder named on record. The hospital group was founded in Jerusalem in 1882 as a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. 1 FoundedFounded in Jerusalem in 1882 by the Order of St John to provide eye care in an area with no universal national health service, the group later added a clinic at Anabta in the northern West Bank, a hospital in Hebron, and, from 2016, a hospital in Gaza City that grew out of a clinic opened there in 1992. 1 Status
Current StatusActive, operating its main hospital in Jerusalem, a clinic at Anabta, a hospital in Hebron and a hospital in Gaza City, together treating over 135,000 patients a year. 1 Organisation
Distinguishing FeatureProvides free and low-cost eye care irrespective of race, religion or ability to pay, in a region with no universal national health service; its Gaza City hospital, opened in 2016, grew out of a clinic first opened there in 1992. 1 Governing BodyA wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem. 1 Humanitarian Aid Operated
Welfare and Humanitarian Aid OperationsThe St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group's own trustees' annual report and accounts, as filed with the UK Charity Commission, report total income of 13,917,000 pounds sterling and total expenditure of 10,427,000 pounds sterling for the year ended 31 December 2024, funding ophthalmic care across its Jerusalem, Anabta, Hebron and Gaza City sites that together treat more than 135,000 patients a year. 1 Humanitarian Aid Figure As Of Basis of the Humanitarian Aid Figure Learn More
An Eye Hospital the Order Built to Answer One Region's Need
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital was founded in 1882 on Bethlehem Road, south of Jerusalem's old city, by the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, the same royal order of chivalry that founded St John Ambulance in England five years earlier. Sir Edmund Lechmere, a baronet who had witnessed the region's acute lack of eye care firsthand, was instrumental in establishing it, and Queen Victoria granted the new hospital a royal charter. War interrupted its work directly: during the First World War the Turkish Army seized the building for ammunition storage, and it sustained damage in the Battle of Jerusalem in 1917. Following the British Mandate, the hospital was rebuilt and expanded through the 1920s, and after the 1948 to 1949 armistice left its original site in no-man's land, it operated for a decade from temporary quarters before opening its present building in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, in 1960.
The hospital's reach has widened well beyond that single site since. A mobile outreach programme began in 1980, a clinic opened in Gaza City in 1992 and grew into a full hospital there in 2016, and further satellite centres opened in Hebron in 2005 and Anabta, in the northern West Bank, in 2007, the network treating well over 135,000 patients a year regardless of race, religion or ability to pay.
Two Charities Under One Order, Two Very Different Balance Sheets
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group's trustees' annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024 record total income of 13,917,000 pounds sterling against total expenditure of 10,427,000 pounds sterling, a surplus of roughly 3.5 million pounds sterling on income that comfortably outpaced spending for the year.
That surplus sits beside a structural fact worth reading alongside it: the Eye Hospital Group is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the same Order of St John that operates St John Ambulance, yet it files its own separate accounts with its own separate income and expenditure, rather than appearing as a line item inside the larger charity's books. The two bodies' 2024 figures could hardly look more different: St John Ambulance's accounts show spending running slightly ahead of income on a budget nearly eight times the size, while the Eye Hospital Group's show income running comfortably ahead of spending on a budget built around hospital operations across Jerusalem, Hebron, Anabta and Gaza City rather than national first aid training and event cover. Sharing a parent order does not mean sharing a balance sheet, and the two charities' own filed accounts are what shows that plainly.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Hebron, Cities This source names Hebron directly: "the northern West Bank, a hospital in Hebron and, since 2016, a hospital in Gaza City that grew out of a clinic opened there in 1992, treating over 135,000 patients a year irrespective of race..."
This source names Jerusalem directly: "An ophthalmic care charity founded in Jerusalem in 1882 as a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, providing free and low-cost eye..."
John, Figures This source names John directly: "Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, providing free and low-cost eye care in an area with no universal national health service."
This source names West Bank directly: "a clinic at Anabta in the northern West Bank, a hospital in Hebron and, since 2016, a hospital in Gaza City that grew out of a clinic opened there in 1992, treating over 135,000 patients a year..."
Belongs to Tradition
The St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the same Anglican-identified Order of St John that operates St John Ambulance, so linked to Anglicanism as its parent order's primary identified tradition.
Sources
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