Family of Israel’s 1st COVID fatality sues state, nursing home for negligence
Children of Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even say he could have been spared infection by social worker at senior home had the worker been tested sooner
The children of Israel’s first COVID-19 fatality were set to sue for negligence the Health Ministry along with the assisted living facility where their father was a resident, their lawyers announced Thursday.
Aryeh Even, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, died on March 20 after being infected with the coronavirus by a social worker at the Nofim Tower senior home in Jerusalem, according to the lawsuit’s claims, which were released to the press. Even immigrated to Israel alone from Hungary in 1949, and was survived by four children, 18 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
The family’s lawsuit, which will be submitted to the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court in the coming days, maintains that the Health Ministry and Nofim Tower caused “serious damage to one of the weakest and helpless groups in society — the elderly, who are unable to give voice to and exercise their rights.”
Even moved to Nofim Tower in 2014 after the death of his wife, and lived an independent lifestyle until he was infected with the coronavirus, according to the suit.
The social worker from whom he contracted the virus had attended a wedding with guests who had recently arrived from France — a major hotspot during the early months of the pandemic. The staffer went on to come in contact with Even twice, once in his room and another time during a meeting in the Nofim Tower manager’s office, even after she began to experience symptoms, the lawsuit says.
When the woman tested positive for coronavirus several days later, Nofim Tower was placed on lockdown. However, it took five days until Even himself received a test, which was carried out on the day he was rushed to the ICU at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center in serious condition.
Even’s children argue in the lawsuit that their father could have been saved had he been tested sooner. “The deceased survived the hell of the Holocaust but died due to the negligence and foot-dragging of the Health Ministry and the assisted living center.”
The ministry has been tasked with carrying out tests at senior homes, where several outbreaks have taken place during the pandemic.
Even experienced “a sense of terror, severe loneliness and helplessness when the institution that promised to provide him with optimal care did not meet his needs,” states the lawsuit, which reportedly seeks hundreds of thousands of shekels in damages.
Even’s children claim they reached out to the Nofim Tower management in an effort to get their father tested, but did not receive a response.
Only after over 100 senior home residents across the country died from the COVID-19 did the Health Ministry “realize that the [elderly] sector should be treated immediately, intensively and professionally,” the lawyers write.
The suit also claims that in contrast to other nursing homes, which took action to prevent the spread of the virus among their residents and employees even before receiving directives from the Health Ministry, Nofim Tower did nothing.
Neither the Health Ministry nor Nofim Tower immediately responded to requests for comment.
At the height of the first wave of the outbreak, the coronavirus spread quickly in nursing homes around the country, whose residents at one stage represented around one-third of the national death toll.
