State comptroller to supervise HMO’s activities

"Recent public complaints against Hadassah Medical Organization will be investigated."

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira‏ (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira‏
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira decided on Monday to designate the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) – which is a non-profit, non-governmental body – as an institution that his office will examine and include in his comptroller reports.
HMO has recently been financially and administratively unstable and has received hundreds of millions of shekels from the state coffers to save it from collapse.
This is the first time that a non-profit medical institution like HMO has been put on the rolls of public bodies that require supervision by the state comptroller. His staff will visit and examine Hadassah’s two medical centers in Jerusalem as well as its professional schools “and also investigate all fields, including public complaints made against HMO,” the comptroller’s office said.
Shapira continued that “recently, complaints regarding all kinds of matters” about activities at Hadassah have been received and that his office will investigate them.
HMO suffered for some 18 months from labor unrest, strikes, near-financial collapse, instability, dismissals and resignations of senior staff and bad publicity.
The recovery agreement signed over a year ago by the Treasury, HMO and the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America (which owns it) required the appointment of a comptroller – but Shapira has added to that supervision by his office as well.
Asked to comment, the HMO acting spokeswoman said that “the Hadassah University Medical Centers function with complete transparency while observing professional work procedures.
In the last few months, the [HMO] system has stabilized, and we have returned to normal work for the benefit of patients.”
She added that “we are not familiar with the report of an examination by the comptroller, but we stress that we are open to the examination to be carried out by the state comptroller and will fully cooperate with him.”
The HMO acting director- general is oncologist Prof.
Tamar Peretz, but although long awaited, no mechanism for naming a permanent director-general has been announced.