The financial crisis plaguing the Hadassah Medical Organization may soon see it go under, a hospital official warned Monday. The Jerusalem-based organization includes two hospitals -- Hadassah Mount Scopus and Hadassah Ein Kerem -- as well as various other medical institutions.
Hadassah is currently 1.3 billion shekels ($369 million) in debt and has been struggling to meet payments to both creditors and staff. A recovery plan introduced over the past few years has failed and administrators at the financially strapped center have warned its collapse is imminent.
Hadassah's medical and nursing staff have declared a strike, performing life-saving procedures only and urging the public to seek medical attention elsewhere. The doctors staged a protest march on Monday, walking from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, close to Hadassah Mount Scopus, to the Finance Ministry. Protesters carried signs reading "Hadassah needs open-heart surgery" and "No pay, No work."
Hadassah administrators have informed the doctors' and nurses' unions that they plan to seek a National Labor Court injunction against the strike. The doctors said that if the court ordered them to go back to work, they would find "other ways" to continue their struggle.
The Israeli Medical Association has filed two motions against Hadassah, arguing against its request to freeze the receivership proceedings it is facing. The IMA claims that the medical center owes it some NIS 900 million ($255 million), making it Hadassah's primary creditor.
Meanwhile, Hadassah administrators have begun negotiating a bailout plan with the Finance Ministry.
The Knesset's Labor, Welfare and Health Committee held a stormy debate about the Hadassah crisis Monday.
Hadassah Director-General Avigdor Kaplan told committee members that the hospital is on the verge of financial collapse, and that the NIS 100 million ($28.4 million) given to Hadassah by the Women's Zionist Organization of America and the Finance Ministry was "no more than a Band-Aid" that would only cover three months worth of staff wages. Kaplan told the committee he would do his best to "stretch the budget" and pay as many employees as possible.
"My policy is that I would like to see all of the hospitals [in Israel] be government hospitals," Health Ministry Director-General Roni Gamzo told the committee. "Government hospitals function better that public ones."
Faced with criticism that the Health Ministry failed to properly regulate Hadassah, Gamzo said the center's administration had been reluctant to cooperate with the ministry.
"When I asked for [financial] data they barely agreed to give it to me. When everything is fine they want nothing to do with the regulator, but when they're in trouble it's, 'Where were you-'" Gamzo said.
Hadassah, he said, "was perfectly comfortable running things by themselves all these years. They deflected any attempt we made to understand what was going on. I learned of the situation from the media -- we never got any financial reports."
Committee Chairman MK Haim Katz (Likud) urged Hadassah to ensure all salaries up to NIS 15,000 ($4,260) were paid, while MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) urged the Health Ministry to nationalize the hospital.
IMA Chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman threatened to shut Hadassah down.
"Once the court hears our [receivership] motions we are walking out. Not one single doctor, resident or nurse will work in Hadassah," he warned.
Health Minister Yael German told Channel 2 Sunday that "the state will grant Hadassah a NIS 50 million [$14.2 million] loan, with aim of going ahead with the receivership procedure and naming a trustee so we can start running Hadassah in a way that would eventually support a sustainable recovery plan."
German added that the medical center's financial woes were "something that should have sounded the alarm bells a long time ago. We will draw the necessary conclusions."
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