The harsh complaints about the Wolfson Government Hospital in Holon are only getting worse, with new revelations about the management of the medical center. In an unprecedented way in the health system in Israel, and for more than a year, doctors have been forced to perform chemotherapy treatments on cancer patients in the corridors of the inpatient department.
This continues despite patient complaints and warnings from the director of the Wolfson Oncology Institute, Dr. Ronen Brenner, to the hospital's director, Dr. Anat Engel, that "the situation does not exist in other hospitals in Israel, does not meet minimum professional standards and endangers the lives of cancer patients." .
Neglect in the oncology ward at Wolfson Hospital
Internal documents show that in addition to complaints about hospitalization distress and shortage of beds for cancer patients, Dr. Brenner has in the past year raised complaints with Dr. Engel about the hospital management's hostile attitude towards the oncology institute, that medical records are manually recorded, and frequent leaks of Rain into the ward and a shortage of manpower that endangers the thousands of cancer patients treated at Wolfson each year.
Israel Today has learned that the severity of the crisis in Wolfson is so abnormal that a week ago the hospital's internal auditor, Assaf Ganz, warned the director general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Nachman Ash: "Urgent intervention is needed from the Ministry of Health management, It is important that the hospital's management is ostensibly working to disrupt the oncology institute's operations while creating a high risk for patients, as part of the management's struggle with the institute's director, in light of his election as chairman of the doctors' committee. To disrupt the institute's activities and leave cancer patients in a difficult situation without an answer. "
The comptroller also wrote to Prof. Ash that during their meeting on April 18, he warned him about "the great risk that exists in the way a hospital is run in recent years."
It should be noted that as early as December 2021, Comptroller Ganz warned Prof. Ash about the shortage of hospital beds for cancer patients in Wolfson that causes cancer patients to be hospitalized in the hallway, but nothing has changed since then.
"Risk of cancer patients"
In addition, Dr. Brenner warned the hospital director that following the corona plague, the management closed the 12 hospital beds at the hemato-oncology institute for cancer patients without any discussion or consultation with the Oncology Institute. He further claimed that the chemotherapy treatments had been given for more than a year and a half. When there is no physical buffer between the film patients and the inpatient patients.As a result, oncology patients receive chemotherapy and lie in dormitories with inpatients, many of whom are infectious diseases.
About a week ago, she was alerted to the dangerous condition of Wolfson's cancer patients by attorney Arena Lynn, who is representing Dr. Brenner following complaints from nurses in the ward about his behavior toward them.
Attorney Lynn argued to Prof. Ron Sagi, Wolfson's risk manager, that "the complaints and allegations against Brenner are false, misleading, misleading and misleading, and they came against the background of his recent election as chairman of the hospital's physicians' committee."
"Urgent intervention needed", patients in Wolfson Halls,
Advocate Lynn added that Dr. Brenner and his colleagues at the hospital "repeatedly warned of the danger of hospitalizing cancer patients in the inpatient department, and that it actually happened, during the corona crisis - while older and immunocompromised populations were instructed to isolate and avoid appointments due to fear of contracting the virus." The hospital's management made a decision to hospitalize cancer patients in the inpatient department and has not backed down from this decision to date. "
Advocate Lynn argued that “the heavy workload and urgent need to provide chemical and biological treatments in exceptional and dangerous situations, such as patients who frequently receive chemotherapy treatments in the inpatient ward, endanger patients, inpatients who are not oncology patients, critics and inpatients. An oncological medical doctor who was not instructed about the toxicity of the chemicals. "
Hospital Management: "Treatment at a High Medical Level." Wolfson, Photo: Yehoshua Yosef
It also emerged from the serious complaint that "in conversations held on the subject, Dr. Engel undertook to return the situation to its original state, but so far it seems that she has refrained from doing so, for reasons reserved to her.
In fact, to this day, more than two years after the epidemic broke out, after four rounds of vaccinations and the removal of corona restrictions among the general public, and despite repeated warnings from Dr. Brenner and his colleagues, the hospital ward closed by Corona was not re-established.
Conflicts and staff shortages
The complaints about chemotherapy for cancer patients in the corridors are just some of the serious complaints about Wolfson's management regarding the Oncology Institute.
For example, as early as October of last year, Dr. Brenner and the institute's physicians alerted Dr. Engel to a shortage of nurses and a medical secretary, but received no response.
"The dangerous situation that has arisen could result in deprivation of human life," the statement said.
On May 15 this year, Dr. Brenner wrote to Wolfson's chief of staff following nurses 'complaints that "the hospital's management has foolishly chosen to harm the oncology institute I head, and is waging an ugly and artificial struggle that involves creating conflicts between workers and breaking doctors' powers, all to impose Horror and serve the purposes of management.
"The work of the administration severely and dangerously harms the lives of thousands of cancer patients treated at the institute, and the conflict initiated by the administration brutally involves patients and their families, joining previous attempts to sabotage advanced cancer patients, harming hospital gatekeepers and bullying and insensitive staff. The patients who are trying to perform a sacred work of helping the patients. "
Wolfson's management said
that "the Oncology and Hemato-Oncology Institute provides treatment at the highest medical level, with the patient public always in front of the hospital's eyes. Dr. Ronen Brenner, and as a result threatened to leave, and complaints also came from patients.
"Dr. Brenner's conduct is being investigated these days."
The Ministry of Health responded:
"The ministry is working to clarify various allegations that come from professionals, including the murky relationship between the director of the oncology department and the treating staff, and the director of the department and the hospital management.
The relevant parties in the Ministry of Health are dealing with the matter intensively to find a solution. "
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