Last update - 00:00 05/02/2007
Doctor convicted of taking ova without his patients' knowledge
By Ran Reznick, Haaretz Correspondent
Senior obstetrician Dr. Zion Ben-Raphael was convicted Sunday in a Health Ministry disciplinary hearing of conduct unbecoming a doctor and violating patients rights laws. Ben-Raphael admitted under a plea bargain to taking dozens of ova from patients between 1996 and 1999 without the women's knowledge or informed consent, in order to implant them in other women.
The obstetrician violated his agreements with the private patients at Herzliya Medical Center, violated his legal obligation to inform the women of the number of eggs harvested, and did not properly document the procedures in their medical files. In one instance, he is charged with harvesting 181 eggs from a single patient and implanting them in 34 other women under his care.
Ben-Raphael also admitted to attempted obstruction of justice for paying $20,000 to someone representing himself as a policeman in exchange for a promise to get the criminal case against Ben-Raphael closed. The impostor was eventually caught with the aid of the doctor's lawyer.
At Sunday's hearing, the prosecution stated that the plea bargain included a sentencing agreement: Ben-Raphael's medical license is to be suspended for two and half years. However, the statement added that the disciplinary committee is not obligated by the agreement and should make a sentencing recommendation to the health minister.
For this reason, witnesses at Sunday's procedure included three former patients and a colleague who testified to Ben-Raphael's professionalism and strict management of the department he ran.
At the time of the incidents for which Ban-Raphael was convicted, he was the chief of obstetrics at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel's largest obstetrics and gynecology ward. However, after the affair was revealed in Haaretz in 2000, his employment was terminated at Beilinson and other institutions managed by health maintenance organization Clalit. Since then he has only practiced medicine privately.
Sunday's character witnesses included retired general Ilan Biran who called Ben-Raphael a "true commander, leader and hero," and recounted the circumstances that led to Ben-Raphael receiving a medal of honor for his resourcefulness and bravery in the face of an Egyptian ambush in the Suez Canal area in 1970. Biran said Ben-Raphael "has wallowed in an insufferable and terrible personal tragedy" since the affair was revealed.