New revelations about the management of Haemek Hospital in Afula: Against the background of the harsh allegations raised about the discrimination and neglect of the hospital, which serves one million residents of the valleys and the Galilee and was revealed in "Israel Today", the hospital management solemnly announced about a month and a half ago For breast surgery, as part of the hospital's upgrade and the attempt to set up a heart surgery department as well.
But now it turns out that this unit includes only a director selected for the position, Dr. Roni Ben Avi, and it operates within the surgical department without allocating and allocating beds, nurses, secretary and operating rooms, and without the Ministry of Health and Clalit HMOs recognizing earlier and approving the department and staff In it, as required.
According to senior doctors at the hospital, this is detrimental to patients scheduled for breast surgery and also to all patients scheduled for surgery, some of whom have had essential and planned surgeries canceled for them in recent weeks canceled and postponed.
Prof. Doron Koppelman, director of the Second Surgical Department at Haemek Hospital, says that "there is no unit for breast surgery, there is a very talented director and that's all they did, they brought in an excellent doctor and took the whole structure from the existing surgical departments This is how new wards in the hospital have been set up for decades, it is a fiction of a ward, it is not a development and a fundamental change of the hospital, as new operating rooms and an intensive care unit have been built here for 17 years and it does not happen.
"The announcement is mainly for public relations purposes, and as long as there are enough people who fall into this trap it is very sad and continues the harsh reality of discrimination. The operating rooms were taken from all the operating wards, so fewer people are operated on in the other wards. "In a hospital. It's all from hand to mouth in a method that they would not dare to use in hospitals in the center of the country."
"Injustice of years"
Prof. Nimrod Rosen, director of the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the Valley Hospital, says that "there is already a 'general' history of announcing the establishment of new wards or units in the 'Valley' without being given any budget backing of manpower, beds and ancillary services. The declaration is only for the sake of closing mouths and there is nothing behind it, it is an injustice of years and it is a 'patch on patch'.
"
He has no senior doctors by his side, he has no nurses for his unit, he has no beds of his own but have taken beds from other wards and taken surgery times and given to him.
what is the meaning of this?
Prolongation of surgeries in all departments and cancellation of many planned surgeries.
This is a lame construction of a new unit.
So too the treatment, tests and follow-up before and after surgery are not possible by a skilled staff, but are built on crooked foundations.
Everything here is completely crooked. "
Indeed, on March 1, the hospital announced on its Facebook page that there was a "message to the north" that "a breast surgery unit was established at the Valley Medical Center from the Clalit Group under the management of Dr. Roni Ben-Avi, a specialist in breast and heart surgery." Dr. Ben-Avi moved to the Emek Medical Center from the Poria Government Hospital in Tiberias, where he established and managed the unit for breast surgery.
The announcement also states that Dr. Ben Avi says that he is "enthusiastic about developing the Breast Surgery Unit in the Valley, a field that is still lacking in the valleys and the Galilee, and now we can address many patients, including cases of accidents, injuries and lung cancer. Thus, far-reaching medical solutions had to be found. "The hospital said in a statement that in early March," the first two patients who suffered from a life-threatening condition were successfully operated on. "
However, Israel Today has learned that an internal document from the hospital's management from the beginning of April states that the breast surgery unit operates within the first surgical ward, that there is no medical and nursing staff of the new unit and that even those operated by the new unit are registered as being hospitalized in the intensive care unit. Heart, and so the medical and nursing staff in the surgical ward where they are hospitalized "have no access to the patient's file and ability to treat."
The residents will demonstrate
The internal document, signed by Dr. Gil Hirschhorn, deputy director of the hospital, further states that "since there is still no unit and unmanned devices, there is a greater burden on the doctors and the nursing staff of Surgeon A." "We are working with the central management of Clalit and the Ministry of Health for the purpose of recognition, standardization and appropriate staffing, and until the unit is recognized, a registration solution will be found that will allow access to the patient's file and also reduce revenue damage."
The struggle of the department heads at the Valley Hospital has been exposed in recent weeks in "Israel Today", in which the department heads and the heads of the local authorities in the valleys and the Galilee have raised serious allegations of continued discrimination, neglect and discrimination of the hospital.
Among other things, there were serious complaints about children's risk to life due to extreme burdens, complaints from doctors that corona patients in critical condition died due to lack of treatment, complaints from department heads that the conduct of one of the directors of medical institutes was "unprofessional to the point of indifference to patients" and more.
Meanwhile, about 3,500 residents of the valleys and the Galilee signed an online petition addressed to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, in which they demand to fulfill the promises of Clalit management to turn the "valley" into a super-medical center that includes all departments such as Beilinson, Soroka and Rambam hospitals The petition also states that "decades of neglect must end, we are fed up with promises and we are anxious for our health and are not willing to be victims of continuous discrimination between the center and the periphery and of shaky infrastructure, which will undoubtedly cost human lives." The residents are invited to come to the demonstration to strengthen the hospital. The demonstration will take place on Friday, April 29, at 10 a.m., in Independence Square in Afula.
Clalit and the Valley stated that "as part of the 'Valley' development, the establishment of a breast surgery unit began in October 2021 under the management of Dr. Roni Ben Avi, a senior specialist in breast and heart surgery, with experience of thousands of breast surgeries. And nursing in leading centers, and the purchase of advanced equipment.
"Since the unit has been operating, its contribution has been well felt and the approval in principle for its operation has been given by the Ministry of Health, which is currently handling its formal registration."
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