Jerusalem’s venerable Bikur Cholim Hospital – which has been almost emptied out
of patients by the Health Ministry – seems to be nearing its end, as numerous
staffers – unpaid for two months – have refused to come to work.
While it
is likely that the financially stable Shaare Zedek Medical Center a few
kilometers away will soon take it over in exchange for tens of millions of
shekels from the Treasury, veteran staffers at Bikur Cholim predicted on
Wednesday that within 10 years or less, it would be swallowed up completely by
Shaare Zedek, with no hospital remaining at the corners of Hanevi’im and Strauss
Streets in the center of the capital.
Bikur Cholim, established in the
Old City by haredi Jews almost 190 years ago and transferred 80 years ago to its
current location, has suffered from severe financial problems and bleeding of
funds. The ministry ordered the hospital’s emergency room to shut down three
days ago, and the 11 remaining premature babies in the neonatal intensive care
unit are due to be shifted to units at Shaare Zedek and Hadassah University
Medical Center unless an agreement is reached on Wednesday night to at least
temporarily bring back staffers. A deal of this kind is regarded as
unlikely.
Shaare Zedek director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy and his
staff have been involved in almost-daily negotiations for months to reach an
agreement with numerous authorities, organizations and unions so it can run
Bikur Cholim. But with the downtown hospital’s infrastructure deteriorating
badly and staffers losing chunks of their pensions and other benefits, it seems
more likely that Shaare Zedek will eventually both hire the majority of Bikur
Cholim’s staff and also transfer departments to its own campus opposite Mount
Herzl.
Shaare Zedek was chosen recently by the government to make a bid
for taking over Bikur Cholim because it is more financially stable than the two
Hadassah University Medical Centers.
The remaining clientele in recent
years has been haredi Jews living in the north and center of Jerusalem who
regarded it as a convenient place for care, especially on Shabbat and holidays
and preferred its catering to their ultra-Orthodox sensibilities and
needs.
Russian-Jewish “oligarch” Arkady Gaydamak, the building’s owner,
had promised to keep the hospital running for at least seven years – and maybe
15 – and did make it possible for staffers to receive some pension funds, but he
cut back financial assistance not long after he took over the physical
facilities. Gaydamak purchased the hospital’s buildings in hopes of winning
votes from ultra- Orthodox Jews in his failed run for mayor of Jerusalem more
than four years ago.
The Health Ministry has ordered Bikur Cholim’s
medical director, veteran obstetrician/ gynecologist Dr. Raphael Pollack
– who himself has not been paid for two months – not to admit any more high-risk
pregnant women or any other new patients. Only 12 internal medicine department
patients, 12 complex nursing patients, two dozen obstetrics patients and their
babies remain.
Ministry officials said the shrinking of the staff is not
a result of the current nurses’ strike, but because staffers refuse to work
unpaid. One nurse said she couldn’t work through Hanukka because schools are on
vacation and she couldn’t afford to hire babysitters for her own children
without getting a salary.
An important meeting between Shaare Zedek heads
and union representatives began on Wednesday evening, but no news was
reported.
During the last 10 years of Bikur Cholim’s most serious
financial problems, the hospital delivered almost 50,000 babies, employed 700
employees who were paid a total of NIS 2 billion shekels and treated hundreds of
thousands of patients in its 200 inpatient beds and outpatient
clinics.
That gives hospital veterans some satisfaction, but they
bemoaned the fact that “the government didn’t want us to continue to exist, and
it will get its wish.”