Hadassah whitewash

In “Rescuing Hadassah” (Know Comment, July 14), David M. Weinberg does a brilliant whitewash of his good friend, Prof. Zeev Rotstein, director-general of the Hadassah Medical Organization. The problem is that he makes a complex problem sound so simple: Just bring in Mr. Fixit with the blessing of that moderate, clear-thinking buddy, Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman, bash everyone who disagrees with or challenges either man and voila, you’ll “rescue” Hadassah. Sorry. That’s not how it works. I’m an Israeli-American life-member of Hadassah, from four generations of life members. For years and years, over 300,000 devoted American Hadassah members have been raising funds almost solely for the hospital. They built it. They furnished it. They gave it their loving devotion.

But according to Weinberg, “hubris and irresponsible management over the past two decades [drove] Hadassah into deep debt. The leadership of the organization apparently assumed that it could get away with hyper-deficits... which the government undoubtedly and inevitably would have to bail out.” That is his side of the story and further justification for Rotstein riding in on his white horse and saber to cut away the dead wood.

Wrong! This was a case of pushing out one needy group in order to make much more money on another needy group: foreign medical tourists willing to pay huge sums for cancer care. Weinberg never mentions that turning the deficit around means doing it on the backs of nurses, doctors and other staff members who took big cuts in pay and agreed to work longer hours to help reduce costs.

If Rotstein got bad press, it’s because he deserved it. His arrogance, and Litzman’s veto of adding a hematology unit to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in order to protect his protegé, looked heartless and biased – because it was!

Next time, please give us a fair analysis of what really happened. JANICE GAINES

Netanya

Yes, Hadassah’s finances need major repairs and it seems that Prof. Zeev Rotstein is doing that. However, nowhere does David M. Weinberg mention the children with cancer who have to be taken to hospitals in different parts of the country to get their treatment. Nowhere does he take Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman to task for forbidding Shaare Zedek Medical Center from creating a pediatric hemato-oncology unit, which it said it could in a few months.

It is these children and their families who are being punished. Sadly, Mr. Weinberg misses the point. TAMI SIMON Jerusalem