Coronavirus ward, Ichilov Hospital Tel Aviv
Coronavirus ward, Ichilov Hospital Tel AvivEitan Elhadez / TPS

Hundreds of bereaved family members of deceased Covid-19 patients are demanding a commission of inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the over 6,400 Covid-19 fatalities registered in Israel.

The families point to issues including lack of transparency and faulty treatment of Covid-19 patients and demand investigation. Miri Boaron, who founded the “Bereaved Corona Families” Facebook group which currently has 991 members, on Monday told Channel 13 that 90% of the group's members have information regarding problematic treatment of Covid-19 patients.

Citing her personal story, she said that her husband, Gabi, passed away following a period of “three weeks [of illness], a week and a half of which he was at home. Then the doctor recommended he go get checked because he had a slight fever. After one day in hospital, he was infected with another virus - so I was told - and after that, the situation only deteriorated.”

She confirmed that her husband had been sedated without her permission.

“Nobody bothered [to notify me.] Every day at three p.m. they would call me and tell me how he was doing. On the last day they called instead at eight in the evening to tell me, ‘Ms. Boaron, your husband has passed away. Would you like to come and pay your final respects?’”

She said that most of the other members of the group also have personal experiences of problematic conduct. For example, “Many of them allege that they made [the patients] sign off on experimental medication. People were not in a position to sign off on such things.”

Boaron, however, said she doesn’t place the blame on the medical teams “that operated in the given conditions,” but rather on the Health Ministry.

“Politics trumped Health Ministry conduct,” she said. “We all know how it was managed. Everything was managed in too political a way for ministries that were supposed to oversee this issue to [do their job].”

The group says that it plans to protest next week in Jerusalem.

“They left us behind, and it is important to us to bring to the agenda the fact that over 6,400 families lost their loved ones. They cannot be allowed to forget us,” the group wrote on Facebook.

“We demand recognition, support, assistance and the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the management failures of the Coronavirus Crisis.”