Legal steps sought against hospital in sexual assault case

A Health Ministry review recommends legal and administrative steps against managers at the Mizra psychiatric hospital in Acre for failing to report a sexual assault, which Haaretz reported on two weeks ago. The findings were submitted last week to the director general, Prof. Avi Yisraeli.

The case involves an assault last summer by a 73-year-old male patient on a 60-year-old woman patient in a psychogeriatric ward. According to the review, Mizra administrators did not report the case to the police and welfare authorities as required by law, nor to the Health Ministry, as stipulated by ministry regulations.

Moreover, the victim's family was not informed of the assault, even though her husband visited her at the hospital the next day and even met with the social worker assigned to her ward.

The review quotes a senior hospital official as saying that there was no need to report the sexual assault "just as there is no need to report every patient who masturbates here at the hospital."

The Health Ministry said in response to this story that it "takes a dim view of the fact that the case was not reported to the police, which the ministry views as a violation of the regulations, and will consider beginning legal proceedings against those involved in the incident." The statement added that the ministry conducted a review of the case and that regulations were refreshed.

The assault occurred last July 10, when the male patient entered the woman patient's room at night, lay on top of her in bed fully dressed, tried to undress her forcibly, and fondled her breasts. Medical staff came in and stopped the sexual assault after hearing shouts coming from the woman's room.

The man suffers from schizophrenia and has been at Mizra since May, after serving 24 years in prison for murdering his wife and one of his daughters. After the incident, the man told the doctor on duty that he had "tried to have sex with the patient."

The northern district psychiatrist's office learned of the matter only four months later, in late October, after receiving correspondence between a senior physician on the ward in question, Dr. Michael Segal, and the department head, Dr. Yuli Vochkov. Segal warned against returning the assailant to the co-ed psychogeriatric ward instead of leaving him in the closed male-only ward to which he had been transferred after the incident.

When Haaretz first reported the case two weeks ago, hospital and ministry officials agreed that this was not the sort of incident that must be reported under the regulations, which require that incidents be reported when substantial harm is caused to a patient, or in case of death. After the newspaper report, the northern district psychiatrist appointed a team to review the case, and its findings contradict the initial response.

According to the review, this was a sexual assault of a helpless patient as defined by law. Despite that, there was no record of Mizra administrators reporting the case to the police or Health Ministry. There was also no record of hospital officials investigating the incident shortly after it occurred, or holding a discussion to draw lessons for preventing similar cases in the future.

The Health Ministry's northern district psychiatrist, Dr. Eli Griner, wrote to Prof. Yisraeli this week that not only is the incident itself "serious," but that "the Mizra administration's dismissive and inappropriate attitude toward the victims and family and toward the law is extremely worrisome."

Mizra's management, headed by Dr. Ilana Tal, issued the following comment: "The case was checked by the management close to when it happened and the management did not see fit to go to the police, but rather to take internal steps such as transferring the patient to another ward. The case must be judged in view of the mental state of the patients in the department, who tend sometimes to act unusually."