In the State Comptroller's report on the third and fourth wave of the coronavirus produced by the State Comptroller Matanyahu Engelman and published today (Tuesday), an absurd case was uncovered that occurred during the preparation of the report and was resolved only after a complaint was filed with the Civil Service Commission.
The complainant contacted the Civil Service Commission and claimed that although his mother had died of coronavirus about a month before the complaint was filed, the police still call him every week to make sure the deceased was abiding by the requirement to remain isolated.
The complainant stated that these conversations caused him great distress, and that all his appeals to the Health Ministry and the police for the purpose of removing his mother's name from their lists were to no avail.
In response to the ombudsman's request, the police said that the lists of people required to quarantine were forwarded to it from the Health Ministry. The ministry informed the Civil Service Commission that at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, it removed from the lists transferred to the police only those who died whose cause of death was listed as the coronavirus. As for the complainant's mother, she was registered in the ministry's computer system as having "died not from the coronavirus" so her name was not removed from the lists. However after the complainant's request on the subject, his mother's name was finally removed from the lists.
The Health Ministry informed the Civil Service Commission that it had repaired its computer system and stated that people who died of all causes would be removed from the list of people required to quarantine which is transferred to the police. Police said lessons have been learned following the complaint, and that the list of people required to quarantine is being distributed to teams that enforce solitary confinement guidelines more frequently.