Last update - 00:00 01/12/2006
'Appalling negligence' found in hospital care of 2-year-old
By Ran Reznick, Haaretz Correspondent
A senior attorney in the State Prosecutor's office described the medical treatment of a 2-year-old girl in Haifa's Bnei Zion Hospital in June 2001 as an "appalling case."
A criminal indictment against three doctors and a nurse, who had treated Ziv Chriqui, today 8 years old, was read in the Krayot Magistrate's Court in Kiryat Bialik on Wednesday.
The indictment says Chriqui fell victim to "severe negligence" and a series of "reckless acts and shortcomings" of the doctors and nurse, which led to permanent and irreversible brain damage.
Chriqui was treated in the hospital for cancer. The indictment says she recovered from the cancer but suffered permanent brain damage because of the grave errors of the medical and nursing team. The nurse gave her a medicine dose 100 times larger than prescribed. She was subjected to numerous ongoing acts of negligence by the three doctors. Among other things, they failed to examine the child for many hours despite her distress and the nursing team's and family's calls for help.
Attorney Bassam Kandalaft of the Northern District Attorney's office read the indictment against Professor Michael Yaffe, the director of the hospital's children's ward at the time, Dr. Dina Atias, director of Hematology and children's Hematology-Oncology ward, Dr. Julia Novikov, who worked as a pediatrics resident, and nurse Lilia Oskatch.
The charge sheet was submitted in April - about five years after the incident - after prolonged bureaucratic foot-dragging in the Haifa and Northern District's Attorney's offices, Attorney Hovav Artzi of the State Prosecutor's Office wrote in January this year.
Artzi wrote that the district attorney and police's handling of the case was "appallingly slow" and that the State Prosecutor's Office also delayed the case beyond the acceptable time limit."
Artzi wrote the letter after the debate on the case by a joint Health and Justice inter-ministerial committee for cases of medical negligence, in November 2005.
Haaretz learned that the committee concluded that the nurse's behavior had deviated sharply from the proper standard of conduct, as such a large dosage for such a small child should have aroused the nurse's attention. The committee also ruled that the criminal investigation against the three doctors must continue.
All the committee's members agreed on this except Professor Yoel Donchin, head of the Patient Safety Unit in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, who objected to taking personal steps against those involved and preferred drawing "conclusions on the professional-organizational level."
In 2003, the affair was debated in Haifa's District Court as part of a civil suit filed by Chriqui's parents against the doctors, the hospital and the Health Ministry, demanding financial compensation.
The state agreed to conduct the case only regarding the extent of the damage, without going into proof of culpability. The suit ended with an agreement, in which the state paid high compensation fees to the parents and child. The agreement also stipulated that when she turns 22, Chriqui would begin receiving monthly payments for life.
In addition to the probe conducted by the police and Health Ministry, the affair was exposed in March 2003 on the program Fact, hosted by Ilana Dayan on Channel 2.