"He sexually harassed me during the examination": The harsh testimonies at Hadassah Hospital

The ultra-Orthodox city of Elad has been in deep difficulties in recent years. The population growth rate is very fast, municipal revenues are low, and the budget deficit continues to swell. Last year it seemed that something was about to change: a new CEO arrived at the municipality, attorney Gabi Biton Bar-On from Kfar Tavor. With his entry into the position, high expectations also arrived - here, finally, a professional from the outside is coming to put order in the municipal mess. However, Biton Bar-On's new career in the local authority did not really take off. After only five months, full of friction and misunderstandings, he was fired from his position. Those who tried to come to his aid were senior members of the Shas movement, but the efforts failed and Biton Bar-On left the municipality. But don't worry: at the Ministry of Interior, controlled by Shas, they already found him a new job arrangement. Someone who lasted only a moment in a local authority was appointed as a municipal advisor to the Ministry of Interior on the subject of merging authorities.

How did an anonymous lawyer with no municipal experience from the north become the man Shas so desired? Perhaps the answers should be sought from his son, Ariel Bar-On. Bar-On the son is a senior official at Hadassah Hospital, a Likud man who swims well in the political swamp and is very close to Aryeh Deri. The Auditor's investigation published about two months ago showed how Ariel Bar-On, who was recruited by the Chair of the Board of Directors Dalia Itzik for the position of Chief of Staff to the Hadassah CEO, became an address for queue-jumping, "combinations," and political mixing. When Itzik is asked about the appointment, she deflects the criticism: "I brought him to help the Hadassah CEO. He helps him a lot." When she is asked if it is possible that he helps the politicians around her more, she dismisses it as nonsense. Bar-On himself refuses to provide explanations. "You can contact the Hadassah spokesperson in an orderly manner," he says when asked about queue-jumping or the meteoric rise in his father's career. "Happy New Year," he concludes and evades the camera.

But Ariel Bar-On is not alone. Following the investigation, other employees at the hospital reached out and shed light on additional methods for favoring associates and specific populations at the hospital. Under the leadership of Itzik, who was appointed to the position under pressure from politicians and senior Shas members, the Chair became the almost sole owner of the prestigious medical institution. Together with her came Avi Blesnikov, who was her assistant in the Knesset, CEO of her ministry in the government, and CEO of the Knesset during her time as Chair. Blesnikov skips together with Itzik between positions - sometimes she advances and sometimes he does. Today he also serves as Chairman of the Export Institute, an executive arm of the Ministry of Economy headed by Minister Nir Barkat. These brave connections reached as far as India. Last year Blesnikov organized a delegation of Israeli exporters to the subcontinent. In videos from the visit, Dalia Itzik is seen walking beside him. She is not a business CEO or an exporter, but simply Blesnikov's good friend. Flying with them were also the Hadassah CEO, Professor Yoram Weiss, and our acquaintance Ariel Bar-On. Most of the delegation's funding fell on Hadassah's account, while in other hospitals, like Rambam for example, the CEO was sent alone.

The investigation reveals a long list of associates from Netanyahu's and Likud's environment who found employment shelter at Hadassah. Besides Bar-On, Ofer Golan and Sani Sanilevich also arrived at the hospital. A particularly prominent case is that of Yifat Ben-Hai Segev, a prosecution witness in Case 4000 who changed her testimony during the trial. Only a month later she was appointed, without a tender or previous experience in the field, as Hadassah's VP of Marketing. Now it turns out that Ben-Hai Segev also brought with her to the hospital Shlomo Filber - her friend from the witness bench and state witness who also changed his version in the Netanyahu trial.

At the center of this network stands Professor Alon Pikarsky, director of the surgical wing at Hadassah and personal physician to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Pikarsky, known as a Beitarist from birth, was recently appointed as a member of the Health Basket Committee and a director at the Rafael company. However, behind the respectable titles hide harsh testimonies. After the initial publication of complaints against Pikarsky, additional testimonies arrived from women who worked under him. A doctor who worked with him tells of a pattern of exploiting authority relations: "Eleven at night, after an operation, he said 'Let's go drink something.' Complimented me insanely and quickly it became sexual. It was a secret. He was at my place and would say he was at the hospital." Pikarsky was then deputy department head in his forties, and she was a young doctor subordinate to him. "I felt exploited, but I blamed myself because I also wanted to," she recalls with pain. "I realized that I wasn't the only one, I heard about others at the same time. What kind of values are these? It's a brothel in a medical school." Her testimony receives reinforcement from another young doctor who turned to the hospital management and told of a romantic relationship that became complicated with Pikarsky, who was her department head.

The harsh testimonies are not limited only to the medical staff, but also come from the patients. A particularly shocking testimony comes from a woman who came to Pikarsky for medical consultation about three years ago, following recommendations she received about him as a senior doctor. "I came because of a specific medical problem," she says. "He didn't explain anything to me about the nature of the examination, just asked me to undress and lie on the bed in the appropriate position." According to the patient, the examination Pikarsky performed was intimate and had no connection to the reason she came to the clinic. "I had been to five other doctors before, none of them ever performed such an examination. He performed an indecent act on me. During the examination he actually sexually harassed me. I was in complete shock at that moment, it took me time to digest what was even happening there." Unlike other cases that remained behind closed doors, this time a formal complaint was filed with Hadassah's management. However, the patient claims that the hospital chose to protect the senior doctor at any cost. "I received an outrageous answer, even humiliating in my opinion. They disclaimed responsibility in a defense letter full of internal contradictions, whose only goal was to protect Pikarsky."

According to the testimonies, Pikarsky's disregard and contempt for women also seeped into the most sacred place in the hospital - the operating room. Employees who were present at surgeries tell of an objectifying atmosphere. "This is the stage where a person is most helpless - anesthetized, ventilated, exposed and naked," says one of the witnesses. "And Pikarsky just laughed at a woman's body. He sneered at the anesthetized patient. I can't even repeat the words he said. It was shocking, horrifying, a complete desecration of the profession." The problematic conduct also spilled over into the purely professional level. In one case described in the investigation, during a gallbladder removal surgery, Pikarsky made a technical error and cut a vital duct. Such mistakes can happen, but Pikarsky's reaction left those present stunned. "At that moment he just left the tools, like that, on the open patient. He stomped his feet, screamed 'shit' and left the operating room. He just left and left the patient anesthetized and open on the table. Only after long minutes did another doctor arrive to close her up." About Pikarsky they already said in the corridors: "There is nothing to expect."

Despite the accumulation of testimonies about harassment, exploitation of authority, indecent acts, and desecration of patients, Hadassah's management intends to appoint Pikarsky as the next CEO of the hospital this coming January. "The fact that such a person is about to be the CEO is terrifying," concludes one of the doctors. "It's simply a dystopia that makes me feel real fear."