Crass coldness

We are the great-grandparents of a very young child whose life was saved by the dedicated care of Prof. Michael Weintraub and his team at Hadassah. They are truly angels of God.

Regarding “Patients’ parents reject plan to solve Hadassah crisis” (May 30), two of the points raised expose a degree of crass coldness bordering on apathy to the urgent needs of cancer-stricken children. Reporter Judy Siegel writes: “Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman has refused to allow Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center to open a competing pediatric hemato-oncology department,” and that “Litzman ordered other medical centers not to hire [the nine staff members of Hadassah’s pediatric oncology department] together or singly.”

Who does Litzman think he is? Such an attitude smacks of a dictatorial arrogance. One would expect more, much more, from the minister of health. Like our great-grandchild, these children cry out for help in the battle for their lives. To play with their lives is intolerable.

That Litzman and Hadassah Medical Organization director-general Zeev Rotstein plan to replace these veteran doctors with rotating doctors from other hospitals is calamitous. To even think that such a scheme, with its discontinuity, can possibly match the daily interaction and medical care of nine senior doctors is absurd. This appears to be a blatant effort by Litzman to protect Rotstein, a protégé whose policies, behavior and actions appear to be based more on getting millions of shekels from foreign patients – including many Palestinians – than truly caring for Israeli children stricken with cancer.

Siegel’s article adds that last Purim, Rotstein “wrote a ‘humorous’ letter to friends calling Weintraub ‘Haman’ and making other such negative comparisons to Shaare Zedek.” Belittling a world-respected oncologist demeans both the person and the position of HMO’s director-general.

We are shocked that neither the mayor of Jerusalem nor the prime minister have spoken out on behalf of children who are battling for their lives. Would they keep silent if, God forbid, their own children or grandchildren were afflicted?

BLOSSOM and ISRAEL RUBIN Beit Shemesh