Newborn Dies After Hospital Failures

The Health Ministry investigation uncovered systemic problems and inadequate work protocols at the hospital. According to the report, the resident physician treating the infant demonstrated a clear lack of competence, failing to transfer critical medical information to the second shift doctor, who never came to examine the baby at all.

The senior physician on call was not updated about the infant's condition in a timely manner. That doctor later acknowledged he should have been notified earlier and that early diagnosis of the infection might have changed the tragic outcome.

Serious deficiencies were also found in nursing staff training. Nurses in the department did not insist on a doctor's examination. Testimony revealed that some nurses were simply afraid to contact the on-call physician or press for additional examination. Due to these communication failures between shifts, nursing staff, and senior physicians, the infant was transferred to monitoring and intensive care only 50 hours after birth—a critical and incomprehensible delay.

The parents describe heartbreaking moments of complete helplessness: "We remember the argument between the nurses about who would go down to get Acamol for the baby who was screaming in pain, our helplessness as parents, and our crying and pleading that they take care of him."

"Throughout the hospitalization we warned again and again that something wasn't right," the parents told Israel Hayom. "Instead of feeling heard, we encountered a sense that our words were being dismissed. We were even told we were being 'naggers,' making the staff feel we didn't trust them, and that our very insistence was out of place." During those fateful hours, while staff dismissed the parents' warnings, the infant's condition deteriorated hour by hour until he reached a critical state and was finally transferred to intensive care.

After the infant's death, the parents were sent home without any organized conversation, without any explanation of the circumstances of death, and without anyone on staff suggesting they conduct a post-mortem examination to understand the cause. Hospital and department management should have held such a conversation and answered their questions but left them alone with their tragedy.

When the bereaved parents tried to get answers, they encountered statements that deflected responsibility: "Everything is for the good" or "This is what G-d wanted."

"Our feeling was that faith was being used to avoid giving answers and dealing with the difficult questions that arose for us following our son's condition and after his death," the parents explain, describing themselves as people of faith. "Faith accompanies us and gives us strength... precisely because of this, it's important for us to say that faith does not contradict the obligation to clarify the truth, learn lessons, and take responsibility. On the contrary. Faith-based statements cannot replace factual answers for a family whose child fought for his life."

In January 2024, the bereaved parents filed a lawsuit in the Central District Court against Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital and Dr. Bernard Barzilai, head of the premature and neonatal department. The lawsuit was filed through attorneys Dori Kaspi and Daniela Avivi Nahum from the firm Kaspi Saror & Co.

The family's attorneys state: "This is a horrifying case of inexcusable negligence... but in this case, the serious treatment failures were accompanied by actions by the medical institution's management which, according to the parents, were designed to obscure the circumstances of the incident and make it difficult for them to get to the truth about their firstborn son's death." The Health Ministry investigation committee's findings provided full support for the parents' claims.

In their defense filing, representatives of Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital reject all the lawsuit's claims, arguing that the infant was treated "flawlessly and with reasonable competence," and that the rapid deterioration in his condition could not have been prevented even with antibiotic medication. The hospital staff is represented by attorney Ofer Doron.

"We didn't seek revenge and we weren't looking for someone to blame," the parents conclude tearfully. "We wanted to understand what happened to our child, to our firstborn son whom we lost so tragically. To this day, no one has taken responsibility. No one has apologized." "The truth won't bring back our son, but it can restore our basic right to understand what happened to him, and allow lessons to be learned so other families won't be forced to go through this tragedy."

Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital did not provide a comment by publication time.