Hospital staff changed Bondi attack victim’s name to hide Jewish identity, reports say

One of the survivors of the Hanukkah terror attack on Bondi Beach was given a non-Jewish-sounding pseudonym when she was admitted to the hospital following the attack, local media reported on Tuesday.

Staff at the Liverpool Hospital in western Sydney changed the name of Rosalia Shikhverg to the alias “Karen Jones” in the medical records, possibly in order to “disguise” her identity, an investigation by Sky News found. New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park has issued an apology to Shikhverg.

Shikhverg was rushed to the hospital on December 14 after sustaining gunshot and shrapnel wounds to the head during the shooting at a Hanukkah party at Bondi Beach that killed 15 and wounded dozens.

After being admitted to the hospital, “they cut my (wristband) and put my new band on with ‘Karen Jones.’ Without any religion,” Shikhverg told Sky News. “I was so scared and so upset.”

Shikhverg and her husband, Greg, said they were never asked for permission regarding the name change.

While hospital officials reportedly told the family the pseudonym was given to protect Shikhverg from being hounded by the media after the attack, she believes the real motivation was more unsettling: a lack of trust in the hospital’s own staff.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA ????????

BONDI TERROR VICTIM ‘NOT SAFE’ IN SYDNEY HOSPITAL: WAS GIVEN AN ANGLO NAME OVER HER JEWISH NAME…

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Rosalia Shikhverg, a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre and injured by shrapnel, was admitted to Liverpool Hospital in Western Sydney after the terror… pic.twitter.com/q5oDGMpyc6

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“In my opinion, they were afraid of staff, not media,” she said. “They can’t trust their own staff.”

Shikhverg said the switch left her terrified and focused more on a fear of her caregivers than her physical injuries. She added that she was haunted by an incident from last February at Sydney’s Bankstown Hospital, where two nurses were suspended after a video emerged allegedly showing them bragging about killing Jewish patients and stating they would refuse to treat Israelis.

“I was so scared,” Shikhverg said. “I was thinking, ‘I have to be discharged very quick’ because I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink [and] I cried all the time.”

Her husband, who remained by her side throughout her treatment, noted  that other victims of the same attack who were treated at different hospitals did not have their identities altered.

“I said, it can’t be. What do you mean by saying you’re protecting her from the media?” Greg Shikhverg said. “How come the other wounded people who were elsewhere in different hospitals, they didn’t go through the same trauma?”

Following the revelation, New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park conceded on Tuesday that the situation “could have been handled better,” but remained adamant that the decision was not born of malice or a fear of internal staff behavior.

“It wasn’t about protecting her from staff, or [protecting] staff from different ethnic backgrounds… It was not done with any ill intent,” Park told Sky News. He attributed the decision to the “heightened risks and threats” in Sydney at the time following the Bondi attack.

Park characterized the move as a localized decision made by administrators at Liverpool Hospital to shield a high-profile victim from external harassment.

“We didn’t want people coming in and trying to engage with her or threaten her or make any comments to people who had already been through hell and back,” Park said.

Addressing the concerns regarding the Bankstown Hospital nurses, Park described them as “two bad apples in a system that does remarkable things for people every single day.” He sought to reassure the public, stating, “Jewish people are safe in Sydney hospitals… they are safe in western Sydney hospitals with Jewish names.”

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the Gaza war and setting off a tidal wave of antisemitism across the globe, Australia’s Jewish community has been among the hardest hit. A report published in December by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) said the country saw 1,654 incidents during the 12-month period from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 — about five times the annual average recorded in the decade prior to the Hamas assault.

The country has seen successive marches and protests that have included antisemitic rhetoric, as well as attacks on synagogues, schools and homes. In one, law enforcement discovered a trailer filled with explosives, said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Sydney synagogue.