Health minister orders crackdown after nursing home abuse revealed
Officials raid more facilities, may close Haifa old-age home where workers were filmed punching, neglecting residents
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman vowed Sunday to crack down on old age homes accused of abusing residents, after a video was broadcast over the weekend showing what appeared to be systematic abuse of residents at a facility in Haifa.
Litzman said raids were carried out by ministry officials at 10 more old age homes late Sunday, after five people were arrested earlier in the day at the Neot Kipat Hazahav old age home in Haifa.
The five were ordered to remain in police custody at an arraignment hearing earlier in the day.
Litzman said the ministry would thoroughly review and improve procedures at the country’s old-age homes, including firing a number of workers and management officials.
Among the measures under consideration are the installation of surveillance cameras in residents’ rooms to better monitor the care they receive.
Litzman personally led a team of ministry officials who arrived at the Neot Kipat Hazahav nursing home Sunday where they demanded to inspect the facility and appraise work methods and practices.
“I am shaken by what happened here,” Litzman told Channel 2 television in an interview. “It is inhuman, I don’t even have the words. We can’t ignore this. I am talking about all of the homes for the elderly in the country.”
The flurry of activity came after a day after Channel 2 aired a report on Saturday showing workers during the night shift at the old age home brutally punching residents and violently shaking them in order to force them to go to sleep.
The report, backed up by hidden camera footage, documented appalling hygienic conditions with seniors being forced to sleep on urine-stained mattresses and going days on end without being washed.
Four workers were arrested along with the chief nurse. Police said that other workers had also been questioned and evidence has been collected from the home. The Health Ministry said that the home’s administrators were summoned by the district doctor for a hearing.
“Following the hearing, the ministry directors and the director-general will decide on the steps to be taken against them to ensure the safety of the eldery [people] in the facility,” the ministry said.
According to Channel 2, the director of the facility was removed from the position Sunday, and the nursing home was ordered to replace him with a medical administrator.
The ministry is also mulling shutting down the facility altogether, according to Litzman.
The minister said he will ban the Neot Kipat Hazahav from taking in new residents until further notice.
Litzman also ordered that improvements be made in nursing home procedures. Among the ideas under consideration are cameras in rooms if the family of residents agree, more ministry inspectors and spot checks at facilities.
In the wake of the investigative report, angry relatives of those living in the home demonstrated outside the building. Many of those with family members residing at the home said they will immediately pull them out and find them other places to stay.
“I am shocked and appalled by the pictures that were broadcast in the investigation,” Litzman said. “This is an loss of all humanity and terrible harm to helpless people. We have to act immediately to prevent these things.
According to Channel 2, the home had received a high score in a nursing review by the ministry a year ago. Litzman accepted that his ministry’s oversight of the country’s old age homes has been deficient.
“We need to be grateful for the report. It is clear that the Health Ministry is part of the problem,” he said.
The footage in the Channel 2 report was provided by a worker at the facility who documented the abuse over a period of months in order to expose what he described as “things I never imagined even in my nightmares.”
Police were expected to look into allegations that, in one case, an elderly woman who had refused to eat for two weeks had her feeding and oxygen tubes disconnected by the night shift staff.
She died soon after and investigators will probe whether removing her tubes was a factor in her death, the report said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “outraged” by the report.
“I was outraged to see these things, this abuse of the elderly,” he said speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting early Sunday. “This goes against our Jewish values and the basic values of the State of Israel; therefore, I expect the Health Ministry and the law enforcement authorities to deal with the abusers to the fullest extent of the law and to ensure that these events do not recur.”
