The committee will be headed by retired District Court Judge Nava Ben-Or, and members of the committee are doctors from the field • Soroka: "We will cooperate fully"
Soroka Hospital // Photo: Dudu Greenshpan
Minister of Health MK Yaakov Litzman, together with Clalit Health Services, appointed a public committee today to examine the suicide events at Soroka Medical Center.
The public committee will offer an outline for further intervention in mental health issues among hospital staff, and ways to prevent it. The Ministry of Health said: "Unfortunately, this is a recognized phenomenon in the health system in Israel and around the world, and we hope the entire system will improve the ways of intervention as a result of the committee's work."
The committee will be headed by retired District Court Judge Nava Ben-Or; And will be members of Prof. Gil Salzman, Chairman of the National Council for Loss of Prevention and Director of the Geha Mental Health Center; And the Ministry of Health.
Soroka Medical Center said in the past year that the center has been running a team assistance program based on accumulated knowledge from around the world to detect depression that could lead to suicide. "The hospital management supports the establishment of the committee, fully cooperates with its work and provides all the information it needs to complete its work," the center said.
Dr. Shlomi Kodesh, director of Soroka Medical Center: "We are aware that health care professionals are more vulnerable to this area. Medical teams are also known to refrain from seeking assistance because of the stigma of these diseases. Therefore, we have run many internal processes at the hospital aimed at raising awareness, involvement and identifying cases of depression that can lead to suicide and we continue to take various actions. "
The rate of suicide among physicians is highest compared to all other professionals. In the United States, on average, a physician commits suicide daily, approximately 400 physicians per year, and the number of suicides among physicians is double the number of suicides in the general population. Data from other Western countries have been similar.
