Photo Credit: Tazpit News Agency
Ambulance at Sharei Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Oct. 3, 2015

(JNi.media) The struggle between Hadassah and Shaare Zedek hospitals has switched to a high gear after the victim of a recent terror attack in critical condition had been transferred from Shaare Zedek to Hadassah for treatment, Israel Army Radio reported Sunday. In Hadassah, some senior doctors treating the victim raised very serious allegations about the treatment he received at Shaare Zedek. According to one of the complaining doctors, the patient had undergone un-professional procedures that caused him irreparable brain damage which could have been prevented.

Hadassah doctors also claimed that at Shaare Zedek there are no neurosurgeons, and they pin the reason for not transferring the patient, a policeman, to Hadassah in the first place was because of the competition between the two hospitals.

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The Health Ministry reassured Army Radio that the professional conduct at Shaare Zedek Medical Center is the best by any standards, and that the trauma unit at the hospital is one of the best in the country.

The Hadassah administration has not issued an official response to the story, while at Shaare Zedek there was angry reaction to the accusations. According to officials there, this contention is baseless and false, and is rooted in the image war between the two facilities, with Hadassah attempting to tarnish the Shaare Zedek treatment reputation compared to Hadassah.

Shaare Zedek officials added that in fact they fight for the life of every patient, and the truth is precisely the opposite — that if the same wounded policeman had it arrived at Hadassah they woud have declared him DOA and opting not to fight for his life to the end, the way the Shaare Zedek trauma room had done.

The ongoing prestige war between the two facilities found another expression in their struggle over who would treat Jerusalem Old City terror victims Adele Bennett and her son Nathan. Mother and son were initially evacuated each to a different hospital, and even when it had been decided that they should be united and be treated under the same roof together, the two facilities continued to debate for days where should be hosted, until it was finally decided to transfer Nathan from Shaare Zedek to Hadassah.

In another case, Hadassah has claimed that Shaare Zedek treated a stabbing victim with a disability, when Hadassah employs an in-house expert who specializes in treating this specific injury. Hadassah has argued that Shaare Zedek refused to move to the injured to their care. But Shaare Zedek told Army Radio that in that case the most professional decision came from an expert from the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, who believed they should wait with the surgery planned for that victim, and so he was released from the hospital.

Obviously, the fact that these minor professional skirmishes are being waged while a real terror war is going on does not help patient care.

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