'The situation at Hadassah was known for a long time, but no one took responsibility'
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Israeli society needs responsible leaders
Op-ed: In the past decade, our leadership has been guided by the notion that it only needs to handle immediate crises.
The situation the Hadassah hospitals
have reached gives us an opportunity to take a deep look at the Israeli situation at this time, as the situation in Hadassah is not just "the situation in Hadassah." It is an allegory, one of many, of the way the broad public's existential problems are handled.
The problem is that no one took responsibility for this situation. Until the hospital stopped paying salaries, the Hadassah train kept going as if reality could be ignored. As if reality would never come.
The situation at Hadassah has been known for a long time now. Madoff's Ponzi scheme emptied the coffers of the Hadassah Women's Organization more than five years ago. Every person with an understanding of how the hospital is run on the inside, and of what it means when the organization meant to provide it with a safety net collapses, was aware of the threatening hole in the budget.
Cash Crisis
Amid hospital workers' strike, Jerusalem court gives Hadassah Medical Center 90-day protection from creditors. Health minister says court decision 'opens the way for us to begin a rehabilitation program.'
And then, reality arrived. Shockingly, the salaries were not fully paid. The employees launched a strike. The hospitals stopped functioning. A million and a half people depend on them to function properly, but those supposed to run the business are not doing their job.
The Hadassah affair resembles numerous other affairs characterizing the conduct of the Israeli leadership in the past decade. The essence of this conduct can be summarized as follows: There is no need to deal with a crisis which is not immediate. A crisis which may happen in a long time, let's say in two years, does not concern the current leadership. Who knows, perhaps the leadership will be replaced and then it will turn out that it wasted valuable time on a future crisis lacking any electoral value.
Who has the energy to confront reality?
The construction of a fence on the border with Egypt, for example, was handled in the same manner. For more than a decade, tens of thousands of infiltrators and refugees entered Israel, and at the moment no one know how we will deal with their absorption. Governments rose and fell, and the fence was not built. When was a decision made to speed up its construction? When there was a terror attack on Highway 12 and civilians were killed. Then the fence construction plan was accelerated – and even completed. Last year, four people entered through this border.In Israel there are tens of thousands of legal foreign workers and tens of thousands of illegal foreign workers, in addition to the tens of thousands of refugees and infiltrators. This does not stop the companies bringing foreign workers to Israel from continuing their activity, as if there really is a need for that. In order to end these human imports, this companies must be confronted. None of the government members have the energy to take this necessary step. Who has the energy to confront reality? As long as it doesn’t blow up right now, during this term.
The Israeli pension funds affair, the haircuts they are subject to now and again, the exaggerated management fees – all these do not concern the leaders. The fact that a large part of the public may lose its ability to live in dignity at an older age due to the outrageous handling of the money is not considered an acute issue.
When will they deal with it? When it blows up. Not a minute earlier. Like the Carmel fire, like the police's serious condition, like the terrible condition of the National Insurance Institute, which will clearly run out of money within several years.
Hadassah is not just Hadassah. Hadassah is a method. A method in which you don't take responsibility for reality until someone pays a terrible price for it.
If there is one thing that is becoming clear beyond the shadow of a doubt it is the fact that we need a leadership which is not only new in terms of its faces, but also in terms of its attributes. The Israeli society needs a leadership which will serve it, and not the other way around. We are tired of serving the narrow interests of our current leaders. Take care of our affairs or we'll send you home.
