Dozens of senior physicians who head departments and units in Israel's hospitals issued a public demand on Monday to replace Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov with a medical doctor.
"We must speak up," the doctors wrote in an open letter addressed to "Israel's leaders."
"The public didn't protest the fact that the healthcare system was being driven to the ground, and the day of reckoning has come," the doctors wrote.
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"Decisions are being made that have nothing to do with the clinical reality on the group, and vital decisions are being held up. The system's leadership has failed in setting criteria for coronavirus testing. Sick people in the community and in hospitals, including pneumonia patients and medical staff nationwide, weren't checked [for coronavirus] for weeks. Many medical personnel were sent into 'battle' without the appropriate weapons.
"Unfortunately, the penny still hasn't dropped. Medical staff are still only insufficiently protected and in many places, protection doesn't exist at all. This endangers our ability to win this battle," the letter continued.
The doctors went on to demand that a medical professional serve as head of Israel's healthcare system, "a doctor with clinical understanding and who is familiar with medical treatment, under whom will operate a team of professionals that includes senior clinicians that will put together recommendations not based on a single person's opinion. Clinicians and field workers must urgently be integrated into the upper echelon that makes recommendations and policy."
The doctors also demanded that doctors take part in the system leading the fight against coronavirus and insisted that "safety of the medical staff be made a priority."
In their letter, the doctors urged an "immediate resupply" of all equipment shortages: high-quality masks, protective eye gear, disinfectant, and more ventilators.
Within three hours of being published, 170 department and unit heads had signed it, and the list continues to grow.
However, shortly after the letter was published, one of the signatories, Professor Doron Kopelman – chief of surgery at HaEmek Medical Center in Afula, in northern Israel – stated the opposite of what was spelled out.
"We don't want to replace the director of the Health Ministry. I respect and admire him. He isn't our target. It's not personal. If there's anyone whom I enjoy hearing speak, it's Mr. Bar Siman Tov," Kopelman said.
Kopelman claimed that "The system doesn't bring in doctors who are out in the field, the doctors who are working in intensive care, in the ER, in clinics with the patients. There is a sense of alienation. I had no political intentions for the letter. For generations, Israel's various governments have neglected the healthcare system by passing intentional policies. We all hope the corona crisis will pass. I hope we'll make it through in good shape … this crisis has exposed all the weaknesses in the system.
"We feel that people who have treated patients, who have operated, who were in the ER and clinics need to be at the top. It could be the minister, the director-general, a committee of 10 people who advise the director. I don't think this is happening at the top of the Health Ministry," Kopelman added.
"The system doesn't know how to bring in what is actually happening, and with all due respect – is detached from it. We are seeing that right now, in policy that allowed a corona carrier into a hospital without being tested. That allowed dozens or hundreds of people to be infected. This policy is wrong," Kopelman said.
