Sourasky’s Ronni Gamzu named ‘coronavirus czar’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein appointed Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center CEO Ronni Gamzu as Israel’s “coronavirus czar” after midnight Wednesday night.
Netanyahu praised Gamzu, a former Health Ministry director-general, for developing a strategic plan for protecting Israel’s senior living facilities from the virus. Gamzu’s Magen Avot Ve’imahot program is still being used today.
“Yesterday, in the late evening, the prime minister and health minister appealed to me to help with the coronavirus crisis at the national level, after the appointment of Prof. [Gabriel] Barbash unfortunately fell through,” Gamzu wrote in a Facebook post earlier Thursday morning. “I immediately responded in the affirmative. This was also the case the previous time, in early April, when I was asked to help manage the crisis in Israel’s senior living facilities.”
The move came after Barbash, who Gamzu had praised as the right person for the role the day before, rejected Netanyahu’s offer following a battle over the mandate of the new post in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
In his Facebook post on Thursday, Gamzu described the crisis as a “medical, economic and social crisis; I do not ask questions in such a situation – when it comes, I just contribute my whole being and help my country and the health system in managing the crisis.
“The challenges are enormous,” he continued, “Restoring the public’s trust in leading the treatment of the epidemic, a smart balance between reducing the infection and continuing life, improving public response and enforcement, improving the system of cutting off the infection chain and continuing to strengthen the medical system.
“These are the challenges of every responsible person and citizen in the country – of all of us.”
Gamzu said that Sourasky would be managed by Dr.
Gil Fire and Itzhak Shapira in his absence.
Since July 6, when Edelstein announced that he intended to form a centralized authority to manage the coronavirus crisis, several other people were considered to head it, including former IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Gadi Eisenkot, Maj.-Gen. Roni Numa, Mossad head Yossi Cohen and former Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov.