Prof. Idit Matot, the director of the Surgery Division and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain at the Tel Aviv Medical Center, said that non-coronavirus patients who require intensive care are being shortchanged due to “unvaccinated people who are choosing to commit suicide.” “The biggest problem right now is the young unvaccinated people,” she said in an interview with Channel 12 News on Motzei Shabbos. Prof. Matot explained that the vast majority of young unvaccinated Israelis who are hospitalized due to COVID do recover from the virus itself but still require intensive care due to long-term effects such as breathing difficulties. They are then transferred from COVID units to other units, placing a great burden on the medical staff. “They take the beds of other populations, of trauma victims or transplant patients or those who underwent surgery. There are ways to prevent this. It doesn’t only affect the unvaccinated who are choosing to commit suicide – it affects all of us.” Matot expressed criticism of the government’s approach to the current crisis. “The government needs to be much more decisive. Either you vaccinate or you take a coronavirus test every three days. I’m not required to pay the price for the unvaccinated population.” “Seventy percent of new COVID carriers didn’t vaccinate at all and the rest are only partially vaccinated. Only three percent of Israelis currently positive for the coronavirus are fully vaccinated. Why do the three percent need to suffer? The only thing the government needs to do is to decide that those who vaccinated won’t have any restrictions and those who choose not to vaccinate must undergo mandatory testing twice a week.” The interviewer then asked Matot if there truly is a shortage of ECMO machines. Like other medical professionals, she responded that the main problem is the shortage of medical staff who can operate the highly sophisticated machines. “We can buy more ECMO machines but it’s unclear who will operate them. One of the biggest oversights is that a year and a half into the pandemic, the number of medical staff hasn’t been doubled.” “There are two things that we really need to implore the government for,” Matot asserted. “The first are clear restrictions for the unvaccinated – clear and harsh. Let everyone else live. The second thing is to provide more funding to the Health Ministry – we must have more medical staff. The existing medical professionals are fatigued – it’s been a two-year war of attrition.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

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