Alliance for Patient Safety

I am happy to open another meeting of the State Control Committee. Today, 20 / Feb / 2017, 24th of Shvat 5777. The topic of our discussion this morning is – An application for the opinion of the State Comptroller on the topic of: Concealment and cover-up of medical malpractice cases while harming the patient’s population (following the case of the child – Ofek Taub).

Look, We will be discussing here today a painful and sad topic. It is painful and sad twice over. It is the topic of medical malpractice. One time because this is just sad. Because it was a mistake, it’s true that mistakes happen. Perhaps they should not have happened, but they can happen and for sure when the subject is a medical procedure. even if the topic at hand is an elective medical procedure, when you come out of it with a severe case of disability which remains with you for the rest of your life, or, God forbid, we have also heard about a death case which has happened. This is really inconceivable. And the second time, because as a preparation for our discussion of the day we have received a collection of cases in which not only that the worst has happened and the family member was injured due to negligence, but it is also the case that the event was not examined thoroughly and was not handled to closure by the Ministry of Health, in order to ascertain that these type of cases will not recur and will not repeat themselves.

I became personally aware of Ofek’s story years ago, and one could not have stayed indifferent. Look, I was familiar with the story, but the way it was handled by the Ministry of Health, as I watched the broadcasted item – I am positive that it did not only have left any person dried eyes, but also had made one’s blood boil. A child who is going in for an elective procedure and they want to give him oxygen and give him CO2 dose instead. I cannot think of anything worse. And the damage is, of course, irreversible.

Look we have the parents sitting here, and even though the Ministry of Health has adopted all the recommendations as they were received by the Ministry of Health itself, but what we are aiming to achieve here is mainly whether things have changed in practice. And I do believe that if there may be a glimmer of a silver lining in this case, it is that we all know that this shall not repeat itself.

The discussion here, and I say this upfront, cannot engage in the fine details and cannot engage in the deliberation that is conducted in the Court of Law at the present, nor will it touch the ongoing investigation, and we shall not get involved with the work of the authorities, however, this discussion is at the principled level, and this principle is very important as well. That even if we make mistakes, we learn from our mistake and we do everything and take every measure so that this does not happen again.

I was happy to see that Knesset Member German is also involved with this case, and has been acting in its regard with vigor. It is also my understanding that the Ministry of Health is working on a piece of legislation, and we would like to hear about the status of things.

I would like to note that the State Comptroller’s has published a report in 2011, and we shall examine what has changed since then. Since if the State comptroller’s report finds failures, we expect that these failures will be corrected.

So I would like to ask Mr. Amiad Taub to start with presenting the case. Please, Amiad