A 47-year-old coronavirus patient undergoing treatment at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital died on Friday night after his ventilator’s breathing tube was disconnected and medical teams did not notice for several minutes.
The hospital attributed Moshe Harazi’s death to the team’s heavy workload, as Israel experienced the worst wave of COVID-19 yet, with a record number of cases and critically ill patients.
“This is an excellent department that treats critically ill coronavirus patients,” the hospital said in a statement. “An initial investigation showed that … the breathing tube came off, but due to the many simultaneous emergency alerts in the intensive care unit, the team, busy with emergency alerts on other patients, [noticed] only after a few minutes. ”
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Harazi then deteriorated and the doctors were unable to save him.
“We are facing a heavy burden that is challenging the team. The hospital administration has opened an investigation into the abnormal incident and will come to the appropriate conclusions. ”
The hospital said it had already decided to reinforce staff at the coronavirus wards, reducing other less urgent operations.
He expressed his condolences to the Harazi family.
“We are demanding answers,” his widow Tali told the news site Ynet. She said the family learned of the team’s mistake from the media and only then from hospital staff. She said a hospital official told her “she is under investigation and after the shiva [week-long mourning period] they will update us. ”
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health on Saturday, Israel currently has 82,551 active cases of coronavirus, of which 1,082 people are in serious condition. The COVID-19 death toll in the country is 3,943.