The Psychiatric Association opposed the intention of turning psychiatric hospitals into corona hospital outpatients • The department will allow the provision of psychiatric treatment alongside the virus

At Sheba Hospital, they began preparing for an inpatient ward for mental health professionals who would need treatment or begin in Corona. The department will continue to provide psychiatric treatment alongside corona treatment to those patients.

Eli Bean on the Corona patient from MDA // Photo: MDA spokeswomen

The move was made against the outcry of the Psychiatric Association, which states that psychiatric hospitals are crowded, have no under-pressure isolation rooms or protective measures and can become "corona ships." Also, 95 staff in the psychiatric hospitals are currently in solitary confinement due to exposure to a patient or returning from abroad.

So far, the Ministry of Health's existing guidelines for the treatment of mental health practitioners in isolation have primarily been addressed in outpatient settings, but there have been no guidelines for the treatment of hospitalized patients. The Psychiatric Association warned last week that if ill-challenged patients were treated in crowded and lacking standards, this would turn into a dreaded scenario. Still, psychiatric hospitals have no experts in treating infectious diseases and no respirators.

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"The expected scenario is to turn every psychiatric hospital into a Diamond Ship for the poor, where as soon as one person carries the virus, all patients and staff will catch on, but unlike Diamond, where people who develop a disease are immediately evacuated to hospitals, our patients will remain responsible Of a dedicated but unskilled team, a loving but anxious and unguarded team, "the psychiatrist warned.

Dr. Zvi Fishel, chairman of the Psychiatric Association of the Medical Association, expressed satisfaction with the move: "We welcome the initiative of the Ministry of Health to also care for those in the psychiatric wards who may be infected with the corona virus."

"It should be kept in mind that today the Ministry of Health's guidelines do not prevent new patients from entering the psychiatric hospitals, which automatically exposes both staff and patients already hospitalized to the virus. We urge the Ministry of Health to immediately protect the treating staff and to immediately benefit the departments in the homes. The psychiatric patients by taking patients into community outpatient settings, ”he stressed.