Israelis Take to Facebook, Twitter to Slam Former Hadassah Head

Reverberations of the serious crisis at Hadassah University Hospital can be found in recent days on Facebook and Twitter. The protest over the hospital’s management failure assumed a personal aspect after surfers began sending text messages to Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the former director of the hospital and at present the director general of the National Insurance Institute. This is in the wake of a message sent to him by Chaim Levinson, Haaretz correspondent for the territories, and posted on Facebook.

• Hadassah Needs Accountability
• 'New Tower Almost Toppled Hadassah'
• Israeli Hospital Suffers, Not Ex-chief
• Stiffed, Hadassah Staffers Walk Off Job
• Hadassah Nursing Staff Get Salaries

Shortly afterwards a social media group called “The people don’t joke with their doctors” (referring to things said by Mor-Yosef at a press conference after the hospitalization of the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2007) was formed. The group describes itself as “the place for posting what you’re writing to the directors and senior officials at Hadassah about the failure, the corruption and the greed that will cost us all dearly.”

The group posted text messages that they sent to Mor-Yosef, which included calls for his resignation from the NII and requests that he return some of his retirement money to Hadassah.

“Shalom, my name is Yael and I wondered whether you are planning to return some of the bonus money you received, maybe for the benefit of several hundred families that cannot make ends meet this month. Do the right thing,” said one of the messages.

Mor-Yosef himself participated in a discussion in the Knesset Finance Committee, where he defended himself and said, “The fire was directed at me in order to cover the real story: The treasury and the Hadassah women’s organization knew about the downslide and didn’t do a thing. On the personal level, anyone who is observing the process understands that what we have here is a personal, cruel, well timed and organized attack in an attempt to turn the problem into a personal rather than a national one.

“I’m willing to have a former judge take my retirement agreements and examine them − I’m willing to accept whatever he decides. I didn’t take the bonuses − they’re in Hadassah. There are people here for whom that’s their management style,” said Mor-Yosef.

“The Hadassah administration and Hadassah women have media advisers, crisis management firms and lawyers who are constructing a partial story − not the full and true story − and are trying to fire three years back, because for three years they didn’t do a thing. I don’t have media advisers or a crisis management firm, but I have the truth. Media advisers are defeating me in the short term, but the truth wins out over the long term.”