Patients at Abarbanel psychiatric hospital in Bat Yam have been complaining for years about the hospital’s conditions which have been described as “inhumane.” But this was the first time that a senior member of the official health establishment, namely Professor Ronni Gamzu, director of Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, warned the Health Ministry about Abarbanel’s conditions, declaring them to be intolerable and in breach of the law. According to a report in Israel Hayom, Gamzu delivered an ultimatum, saying that if things did not improve, the hospital would not be permitted to admit any more patients.

“The lack of beds and overcrowding cause dreadful conditions at Abarbanel Hospital,” Prof. Gamzu told Israel Hayom, “and the overcrowding in turn creates inadequate security conditions for staff, many of whom leave as a result. Things are getting worse,” he added.

A month ago, Prof. Gamzu signed the first agreement of its kind, making the hospital a branch of his own hospital, Ichilov. Following this development, he wrote to Abarbanel’s director, Prof. Yuval Melamed, as well as to the director-general of the Health Ministry, Prof. Nachman Ash, warning of “the urgent need to make substantive changes to the adult inpatient wards,” and that people were being admitted to the hospital in “intolerable conditions.”

In recent years, Israel Hayom has reported numerous times on the complaints of patients and staff alike at this government-run psychiatric institute, and the issue of overcrowding is not new. Dozens of new beds are needed on the closed wards meanwhile, patients are forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor, in isolation rooms, and in other unsuitable locations.