Soroka staff and doctors were shocked after a fourth doctor's suicide in just a year and a half • "Management wants only industrial quiet, doctors do not stand up to pressure"

• Soroka Hospital // Photo: Dudu Greenshpan

Shock and shock at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, after the weekend Dr. Doron Moskowitz, the fourth doctor in number within a year and a half, committed suicide in a hospital ward.

The doctor was in his third year of specialization. His suicide came after three suicide cases by senior doctors in various departments of the hospital: Dr. Alex Berezovsky, 59, who was the director of a plastic surgery department at the hospital, Dr. Abi Shimoni, senior cardiologist and director of the cardiac care department, and Dr. Mark Priscell, a nuclear doctor, who took his life just a month and a half ago.

Doctors and staff working in Soroka warn of workload, physical and mental burnout, sick load and round-the-clock work. One of the doctors told Israel Today: "Management is not all that interesting. We are a medical institution but also a very competitive organization, both within ourselves and in other hospitals in Israel. The management wants only success and industrial silence. It works to separate the suicide cases, As if there was no connection between them, but there is a clear and unequivocal line between all the tragedies that have happened in the hospital for the past year and a half. "

"These are doctors who did not stand up to the pressures of work. It is only a matter of time before the next doctor reaches a point that will no longer be under pressure and do an extreme act," the doctor added painfully.

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Last night, after the fourth suicide note was published, the Soroka administration issued an unusual statement: "We are very saddened to announce the death of a medical staff member in the hospital. The hospital management convenes an urgent hearing following the tragic cases and announces its steps. We participate in the heavy grief of the family. "

Dr David Zeiger, chairman of the Soroka Physicians Committee, this morning dismissed allegations of a link between workload and physician suicide. In an interview with Radio South, Dr. Ziger said: "I think the workload is not the main factor. Two of the suicide workers were executives, which means they set their own load." He also added about the specialized doctor who took his life yesterday: "It has to do with the mental distress that he went into following jobs in Soroka. Surely everyone was in mental distress due to being doctors working in Soroka Hospital."

In the suicide note left by Dr. Berezovsky, the end of his life in July 2018, he accused the Medical Histadrut that its people were unjustly hurting his status when he was forbidden to continue to train new interns in the department.

The late Dr. Alex Berezovsky. He requested that the representatives of the Medical Association do not attend his funeral

About a year and a half after his suicide, Dr. Berezovsky's widow, Igna, accused the Histadrut and Soroka's management of his tragic death. Among other things, she claimed that Soroka doctors work under very difficult conditions, and that these conditions are physically and mentally abrasive to them.

The late Dr. Avi Shimoni // Photo: Soroka Hospital

To this can be added stories of doctors in Soroka for years about doctors' hard work, difficult working conditions, lack of hospital management support and fierce competition between doctors, which meant that doctors, including senior doctors, needed psychiatric treatment. Some were even admitted to the psychiatric ward, including two interns who collapsed mentally.