Alliance for Patient Safety

Yael German (Yesh Atid):

First of all, I am full of excitement, really, of your tenacity and perseverance, madam Chairperson, that indeed in such a short time you have summoned everyone in order to give the report and provide the answers. I really think that's the way to make a change. We know that you did it only a short while ago in another area.

I want to say this; first of all, I must say a good word that it is well deserved. I have listened here very attentively and with appreciation about the progress and the very very meaningful change that you have made in the last year; no doubt that it is an impressive change. Really impressive; nonetheless I think, as I have said also in the previous time, that the complaints commission, as it is, cannot be within and part of the body that it investigates. The police took out the department for internal police investigation to the Ministry of Justice. We have sat for a long time, you too madam Chairperson and me on the audit commission on the prosecution bodies and the Attorney General's prosecution office.

Bezalel Smotrich (Habait Hayehudi)

If to admit the truth, we have failed there slightly.

Yael German (Yesh Atid):

I don't think we failed, we have created —

Bezalel Smotrich (Habait Hayehudi):

We wanted the same thing, both of us.

Yael German (Yesh Atid):

We had a similar position really, Knesset member Smotrich and me; we were of the opinion that there must be an independent body as much as it is possible and its independence will really enable it to conduct the audit in the most objective manner; and here as well, despite of the progress and the high appreciation of what you show, I think that it is just not normal. It is against human nature; it is impossible that physicians will investigate other physicians. Therefore I warmly recommend to do what we have done in the commission on the auditing bodies on the prosecution in the country and what has been done in the police, and I very warmly recommend taking the commission out of the Ministry of Health. I don't know whether in fact it should be placed in the Ministry of Justice; might be that an independent body could be created as per the example of the prosecution commission, the Audit Commission on the Prosecution system and Representatives of the State in the courts of Law It could be that it is possible to find another formula.

At the minimum, if we see that the process is prolonged and if we see that it encounters much resistance, I am of the opinion, and I must first of all say that I have much appreciation and fondness to the person that today heads the commission; I know him and I like him and appreciate him and am sure that he does a wonderful job, nonetheless according to my evaluation, at the head of the  commission must stand a person who is not a physician; that he does not come from the medical milieu, one who does not know the physicians, one who doesn't know physicians that know physicians. I am thinking of a judge, but as far as I am concerned if we find some other person who really is objective; yes, next to him must be a physician; no doubt within the commission there must be a physician who will assist him, but he must see it from under, what we call, a veil of ignorance, really from a total ignorance point of view in these matters, one who is not influenced by what you unwillingly are influenced by. You don't want, you have the best of intentions, but it is almost inhuman. Then, it is my recommendation.