PM to reexamine Ashkelon ER relocation
Netanyahu instructs his office's director-general to head team which will look into professional aspects of moving Barzilai Medical Center's emergency room 'so as not to put human life at risk'. Plan's implemenation frozen until after Passover holiday
According to the statement, the prime minister instructed his director-general to submit the professional team's recommendations immediately after the Passover holiday. Until then, the plan's implementation will be frozen.
The government's decision on the matter is expected to significantly delay the completion of the fortified emergency room and cost taxpayers tens of millions of shekels.
"The decision to relocate the emergency room is wrong and unjustified," said the minister, who voted against the move during Sunday's cabinet meeting.
Barzilai doctors on Monday launched a battle over the emergency room's future. The doctors gathered outside the hospital in order to express their protest over the cabinet decision. Dr. Efraim Zohav, head of the Barzilai doctors' committee, said that the struggle was joined by all of the hospital's workers.
"We won't let this decision be implemented," he said. "It will perpetuate the injustice done to Barzilai and the entire area. We will block the bulldozers arriving at the hospital."
The Kadima and Meretz factions called for a special Knesset session under the title, 'Netanyahu's surrender to the haredim and the government's decision to favor the dead over the living." The 25 signatures required for such a discussion have been submitted to the Knesset secretariat.
