Four workers of a Haifa nursing home have been sentenced Thursday over excessive mistreatment of aged residents.
The Haifa District Court sentenced three caregivers, who have been discovered responsible as a part of a plea discount of aggravated assault and “attacks against the helpless.”
Hussam Abu Ahmad, 50, and Andrei Keyes, 49, will serve a jail sentence of one-and-a-half years, and caregiver Peter Goskob was sentenced to 9 months in jail, the court docket stated. The prosecution had initially sought jail phrases of 5 to seven years.
The nurse in cost of the unit on the Neot Kipat Hazahav nursing home, Inessa Schneider, was convicted of breach of obligation, neglect and failing to report the incidents, and sentenced to 6 months of neighborhood service. The prosecution had sought a 6- to 12-month jail sentence.
In addition, the 4 can pay compensation to the victims, of sums starting from NIS three,000 to 15,000 ($800-$four,000).
Footage of a worker from the Neot Kipat Hazahav outdated age home beating an aged resident. (Screen seize: Channel 2)
The State Prosecutor’s Office stated it might look at the sentences and contemplate an enchantment to the Supreme Court.
The abuse got here to mild after the 4 have been seen in video footage aired by Channel 2 a 12 months in the past displaying employees brutally punching residents and violently shaking them in order to power them to fall asleep.
The tv report additionally documented appalling hygiene circumstances on the Haifa facility, with seniors being pressured to sleep on urine-stained mattresses and going days on finish with out being washed.
The footage was supplied to the tv station by a Neot Kipat Hazahav employee, who documented the abuse over an interval of a number of months in order to reveal what he described as “things I never imagined even in my nightmares.”
After the sentencing, Benny, the son of one of many victims, expressed his dismay on the quick jail phrases.
“This is not a deterrent — a year and a half is not a severe punishment for the offenses they committed,” he instructed the Ynet information website.
“My mother is just now beginning to recover. She told me that what they did to her was like armed robbery, and for armed robbery some judges will sentence you to 11 years. There must be a punishment that is a deterrent so that these difficult events in the nursing homes will stop,” he stated.
After the preliminary report aired in 2017, police raided the nursing home, making a number of arrests, and interrogated dozens of Neot Kipat Hazahav workers. The Health Ministry then summoned senior employees for a listening to and ordered that the power’s director get replaced with a medical administrator.
The Neot Kipat Hazahav outdated age home in Haifa. (Screen seize: Channel 2)
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman expressed outrage on the documented abuse, and vowed a thorough assessment of Israel’s nursing properties that would come with firing employees and administration officers.
He personally led a staff of ministry officers to Neot Kipat Hazahav, the place they demanded to examine the power and appraise work strategies and practices.
Neot Kipat Hazahav had acquired an excessive rating in a nursing assessment by the ministry in 2017. Litzman accepted that his ministry’s oversight of the nation’s old-age properties has been poor.
In July 2017, the Welfare Ministry stated reviews of neglect and abuse of the aged by members of the family and caregivers went up 17 p.c in 2016, together with a 20% rise in reviews of s3xual abuse.