Hospital
HospitalFlash 90

On Friday night the family members of a patient in Tel Aviv's Sourasky Medical Center's Internal Medicine ward began to riot, hospital staff reported.

Hospital Director Professor Ronni Gamzu ordered the staff to call the police.

Upon their arrival, Israel Police officers arrested two of the patient's family members.

The patient in question is an elderly woman who has a complicated medical issue. Her family members acted both physically and verbally violent towards hospital staff in three different wards where she was treated.

During the patient's hospital stay, she received dedicated treatment from the medical staff, despite her family's violent behavior, which disrupted other patients as well as staff.

The behaviors in question included curses the nurses and doctors, as well as threatening to murder one of the ward's doctors.

"You're not going to stay alive," one of the patient's female relatives promised the doctor.

Gamzu said, "The hospital will not tolerate incidents of this type, and deals harshly with any kind of violence which patients or their families direct at hospital staff. These people believe violent behavior will accomplish their goals and relieve their frustration.

"Tova Kararo's death unfortunately has not had any impact on the public. Even after the murder was publicized, we still see threats and violence towards medical staff. We are not prepared to tolerate this.

"I call on Israel Police and the Israeli justice system to deal harshly with anyone who acts in such a way towards medical staff or patients, and to make punishments for such crimes more severe. The 'free for all' situation we are dealing with now happens every day, and medical staff are afraid to come to work. We cannot continue to allow these kinds of incidents to happen."

On Monday morning, a patient in his 50s attacked an emergency room nurse in Assaf Harofeh Medical Center.