Magen David Adom has filed a lawsuit with the Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday for the sum of 2.6 million shekel. The lawsuit is filed under the claim of slander. While the official suit has not been published yet, Israeli news sites have stated that among the claims in the lawsuit is that statements were made suggesting that Magen David Adom ambulances are slow to respond to emergencies.
According to a report on the Arutz Sheva website, the lawsuit is against the organization as a whole as well as personal suits against President and Founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer, CEO Moshe Teitelbaum, and Spokesperson Moti Elmaliach.
When asked to comment on the situation a Magen David Adom spokesperson said: “The Lawsuit speaks for itself.”
United Hatzalah issued a statement following notification of the lawsuit which read: “The Directorship of Magen David Adom continues to act aggressively in an effort to maintain their monopoly on the lifesaving emergency medical services (EMS) in Israel. This time, they are attempting to do so by way of lawsuits, fear tactics, and silencing another national emergency medical service provider.
We have not yet seen the statement of claim against us, so we cannot speak to any of the claims made therein. However, the lawsuit will not scare our 5,000 volunteer EMS personnel from doing their work on behalf of the people of Israel and providing our services for free. It will not scare our teams from working hand-in-hand with Magen David Adom personnel in the field either.
With regards to the amount mentioned in the suit, some 2.6 million shekel, this just goes to show that Magen David Adom is a financially minded institution that is aggressive and has for years been making money at the expense of Israeli citizens. This time, they are attempting to do so to the detriment of 5,000 EMS volunteers.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
It is a sad day for all when there is lack of cooperation between all life saving organizations. I personally know that M,D.A. has generously trained Hatzola personnel and shared knowledge and resources with United Hatzola for the sake of the public good even at MDAs own expense. Sad that there is no hakaras hatov and only nasty accusations by Hatzola claiming that MDA has slow response when that is not true.
. By accusing MDA of ” act aggressively in an effort to maintain their monopoly” Hatzola is just shooting themselves in the foot, as MDA has been most helpful to Hatzola in many ways.
I have personally seen Hatzola taking public credit for MDA work, or taking full credit on joint work.
Both organizations do good work and each has its place and should work hand in hand, in full cooperation
There is need to denigrate the good name of the other that is just bad form and destructive. (and an attempt at fundraising by falsely creating a problem that only one can solve)/
If MDA feels the need to sue and yes, suing means financial penalties in order to discourage future behavior, it is up to the courts in a legally minded society to investigate and decide. If Hatzola is innocent there is no reason for such a strong response.
corrections ” NO need to denigrate the good name etc”
the fact is that they are way too slow to respond! I guess the truth hurts them. they want to make their money while hatzolah wants to save lives
did you ever see how MDA respond to a call? It looks like they going to supermarket to pick up some stuff
Whether the claims are true or not, this is not how a emergency service charity behaves towards 5000 volunteers giving much of their live and safety to fellow citizens.
If the lawsuit is successful it will be the recipients of the voluntary organisation Hatztoloh to pay the price by not receiving the service required due shortage of funds cholioh.
Because Mogen Dovid stooped so low to go to secular court:-
1) I am discontinuing giving any Tzedoko to them, but will not instead give money that I had assigned to them, to United Hatzalah instead.
2) I shall not attend any Mogen Dovid Blood Drives.
To a Good Jew:
The rule of thumb in MADA is that an ambulance must be enough route to a call within 1 minute of receiving a call. There are cameras and GPS in each ambulance and there is a dispatcher who is in charge of making sure they get there as fast as possible. Ichud was originally created to be first responders. MADA has Nemanei Chaim and first responders as well but their main job is is patient transport.
As per your comment about the supermarket thing. I’m an atmosphere of tension relaxation is the best remedy. MADA ambulance crews are trained not to rush when it is not necessary and rush calmly when it is necessary. I have seen an ambulance arrive at a car crash and extract, immobilize and leave the scene within 3 minutes. I have been on calls where it was Ichud that caused the delay.
The reason that MADA is sueing for those claims is because until MADA gets the request from Ichud for an ambulance it is after Ichud decides that one of their ambulances are not available. Sound familiar? That is the exact complaint that Ichud makes, that they don’t get calls from MADA. What a funny coincidence!!
To Dovid the Kanoi:
I wouldn’t worry about Ichud’s financial situation, they’re doing just fine. They are really good at collecting money and one of their techniques is to bad mouth and play victim to MADA.
To 147:
Would you go to bais din to make an insurance claim? Thought so. If MADA would take Ichud to beis din it would be tied up with irurim and at the end it would either be forced into a peshara or the bais din will say they don’t deal with hotzat diba (slander) cases. In reality, slander is possibly a criminal offense in Israel so beis din wouldn’t take the case anyway. And besides, Ichud’s reaction would be the same in any case.
As for your refusal to give blood over this, so you’re possibly a roidef because MADA runs ALL the blood banks and blood drives in Israel and are responsible in providing the hospitals with units. Maybe Ichud should make a campaign to break Mada’s monopoly on that too!!
As for your tzedaka, no one cares where you give to and they both are a good cause, but keep in mind that that is exactly what Ichud wants from all the noise they are making.
As for the monopoly, if Ichud had to run well over a thousand ambulances and intensive care ambulances and need to pay 14,000 employees then they’d be charging too.
Let me make it clear, while I volunteer MADA I have the utmost respect for the first responders of Ichud and I have many friends that volunteer for them. They are essential to life saving and do amazing work. This whole fight has nothing to do with them and many of them are fed up with the politics as well as many in MADA.
Shuki your numbers are a bit wrong, MDA has ‘only’ roughly 2000-3000 employees and 14000 volunteers and though MDA may have well over a thousand vehicles they most definitely are not all working at the same time, the vast majority are not in the Jerusalem district which is the largest district by far and represents roughly 1/8 of the population of Israel we don’t have close to 100 ambulances active at the same time (probably not even 50, if you count bicycles, motorcycles, electric buggies then you will surpass 100 vehicles).
There are sadly no tzadikim in this ugly fight and I can only hope that maybe all this noise will finally cause the state of Israel to decide what it wants from itself when it comes to EMS and Pre-Hospital medicine, the current situation of a multitude of different private organizations both for-profit (natali, shachal, etc) and non-profit (MDA, Ichud, all the countless other ‘hatzala’ etc) providing service part of the time harmoniously and part of the time rolling in the street fighting is untenable in the long run.
147 –
The national blood bank is run by MDA, there are no non-MDA blood drives so please don’t stop giving blood over dumb politics that are not related to that side of operations, if and when the state of Israel allows alternative blood banks by all means go to whoever you identify with most/provides you the best experience etc that is what competition is all about but until then withholding your blood only harms the patients in Israel for whom there isn’t enough blood as is.
To keeper of the keys:
It’s funny that you corrected me. I did some fact checking after I wrote the previous reply and realized that I made those mistakes.
Like I mentioned before, I have the utmost respect for the כונני איחוד. It’s an absolute pleasure to show up at a scene and get good אנמנזה from them. And generally they are really helpful up to the פינוי as well.
I really hope that level heads prevail because us lowly EMT’s just want to work in harmony without politics.
בהצלחה ותודה
ShukiDave –
As a volunteer in both organizations I can only agree with you and hope we will get back to normalcy asap.