Misgav Ladach CT institute to reopen

Shaare Zedek to supervise following hepatitis C infection incidentץ

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Shearei Tzedek Hospital (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Shearei Tzedek Hospital
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Following the incident earlier this summer in which 12 patients who underwent computerized tomography scans were infected with hepatitis C, the CT institute at Jerusalem’s Misgav Ladach Hospital – owned by Meuhedet Health Services – will reopen with limitations.
The functioning of the facility will gradually be restored under the supervision of the imaging institute of Shaare Zedek Medical Center. At this stage, the scans will be done without the injection of contrast material, according to Health Ministry instructions.
The CT institute was closed down by Jerusalem District Health Office Dr. Chen Stein- Zamir after the infection of the patients became known.
The incident is now under Israel Police investigation, and a professional ministry committee headed by Dr. Ziv Rosenboim was appointed to prepare recommendations on the use of contrast-material injection in the health system.
These recommendations were approved by the National Council for Imaging and Logistics and are now being studied by ministry management for implementation in the field.
Ministry inspectors have carried out a number of checks at Misgav Ladach and reported that the operational and administrative defects have been corrected. Then it was decided that Shaare Zedek’s imaging institute, headed by Prof. Hadas Halpern, would be in charge of supervising the problematic facility.
Halpern toured the institute at Misgav Ladach, which previously was a voluntary maternity hospital and now conducts medical tests for Meuhedet members and provides geriatric services.
The topic of preventing infections in Misgav Ladach’s CT institute was put under the supervision of Prof. Allon Moses of Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.