Treasury names external accountant to Hadassah Medical Organization

Shaare Zedek board backs Jonathan Halevy.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: JUNE 23, 2017 01:43
Hadassah Medical Organization’s woes are far from over. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Hadassah Medical Organization’s woes are far from over.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The Accountant-General’s Office in the Treasury announced on Thursday that it is appointing Shlomo Ben-Shimon of Brightman Almagor Zohar & Co. to be an external accountant supervising the Hadassah Medical Organization’s implementation of its recovery program.
HMO received hundreds of millions of shekels from the government a few years ago when it was near bankruptcy, even though it is not owned by the state. The appointment was made “in coordination” with the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America, which owns it.
In the statement, it was noted that Ben-Shimon will examine the HMO’s compliance with the targets set out in the agreement and report to the tripartite committee – composed of the Finance and Health ministries, and the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America – on any deviation from the hospital’s obligations.
Meanwhile, the board of governors of Shaare Zedek Medical Center announced its full backing for director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy and “rejects the statements and publications that hint at his alleged involvement in the crisis between the Hadassah administration and the pediatric hemato-oncology department there.
Halevy “has been serving as the director-general of Shaare Zedek Medical Center for the last 30 years and is one of Israel’s leading medical professionals. His integrity, his credibility and his great talent are not in doubt. Thanks to his abilities, his unique personality, his pleasant manner and his unique management style, he succeeded in leading the hospital as a major medical center with remarkable achievements,” the board said.
On Wednesday, Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman accused Halevy publicly of organizing a “putsch” to get the nine physicians who resigned from HMO to come to Shaare Zedek and set up a new department, which the minister refused to authorize.
Halevy was appointed by Litzman for an unprecedented three times as voluntary head of the “basket committee” to recommend new medical technologies to be covered by the health funds, the board said, and was for six years the unpaid chairman of the National Transplant Center.