Hadassah interns say nothing funny about hospital head’s Purim comparison

After resigning doctors from pediatric blood cancer unit are likened to Haman and cronies, they threaten to look for work elsewhere

By Sue Surkes

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4 April 2017, 11:13 pm

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Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center CEO Zeev Rotstein speaks during a Labor, Welfare, and Health Committee meeting at the Knesset on the crisis at Hadassah on March 7, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A group of 25 junior pediatric doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, Ein Kerem have warned that they may leave at the end of their internships over the attitude of the hospital director to staff.

The move comes weeks after six doctors from the unit which treats children with leukemia and other severe blood diseases resigned en masse over a dispute with director Zeev Rotstein.

Resigning last month, unit director Michael Weintraub and his colleagues blamed hospital management for what they described as unsatisfactory working conditions.

In a letter made public by Israel Radio, the 25 trainees in the pediatric ward said they were shocked to see that Rotstein continued to malign Weintraub to the hospital staff.

The interns were referring to a letter in which Rotstein reportedly compared Weintraub and the other resigning doctors to the evil character of Haman and his cronies from the Purim story.

Parents and family of patients treated by the department of pediatric hemato-oncology at Hadassah Hospital, Ein Karem, demonstrate in support of the unit‘s head, Prof. Michael Weintraub, near the Ministry of Health offices in Jerusalem on February 9, 2017. Photo by (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) — Parents and family of patients treated by the department of pediatric hemato-oncology at Hadassah Hospital, Ein Kerem, demonstrate in support of the unit‘s head, Prof. Michael Weintraub, near the Ministry of Health offices in Jerusalem on February 9, 2017. Photo by (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In the letter, the group said they were “shocked” by the characterization, calling the unit’s senior staff “role models.”

The Purim holiday is often celebrated with plays and satires, often skewering those in the news. But the group said the holiday did not justify Rotstein’s comparison.

“As young doctors….we find it hard to go forward after this damage to the status of the best of our teachers,” they wrote.

The group added that they would look for work after their program ended in places where “mutual respect, devotion to people, modesty and humility are foundation stones.”

“We very much hope we will be able to say that about Hadassah Hospital, but at present, with great pain, we are not sure,” they wrote.

Professor Michael Weintraub, head of hemato-oncology Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem (Hadassah) — Michael Weintraub, head of hemato-oncology Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem (Hadassah)

A statement from Hadassah Hospital, broadcast on Channel 2 News, said it was clear that the resignation of the doctors from the pediatric hemato-oncology unit would have a “depressing effect” on the hospital’s doctors in general, and on management, which was still trying to “do everything” to find a way to keep at least some of the doctors at the hospital.

Hadassah has since appointed a replacement for Weintraub.