The hospital admitted that staff should not have changed the patient’s name without her permission but insisted that it was fear of media hounding, not fear of their own staff.
By Dinah Bucholz, Jewish Breaking News
When Rosalia Shikhverg saw hospital staff cut off her wristband and replace it with one that said “Karen Jones,” she was confused and terrified.
She had arrived at the hospital after the Bondi Beach massacre in Sydney, Australia, on the first night of Chanukah, which killed 15 people, including children, and wounded dozens of others.
Shikhverg suffered gunshot and shrapnel wounds to the head.
A Sky News investigation found that staff had acted to “disguise” her to protect her from media attention while being treated at the hospital, but Shikhverg feared that the reason was more sinister: that it was meant to protect her from staff.
The memory of two Australian nurses under investigation for admitting to killing Israeli patients haunted her hospital stay. Rather than feeling protected, she felt afraid and felt she could not trust anyone.
When Shikhverg recounted the ordeal to Sky News, she said that she was not asked for permission to change her name, and her husband, Greg, said that other victims brought to other hospitals did not have their identities changed.
“They cut my (wristband) and put my new band on with ‘Karen Jones.’ Without any religion,” she told Sky News. “I was so scared and so upset.”
“In my opinion, they were afraid of staff, not media,” she said. “They can’t trust their own staff.”
Recalling the horrifying video of the nurses, she said, “I was so scared. “I was thinking, ‘I have to be discharged very quick’ because I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink [and] I cried all the time.”
The hospital admitted that staff should not have changed the patient’s name without her permission but insisted that it was fear of media hounding, not fear of their own staff, that prompted the name change.
“It wasn’t about protecting her from staff, or [protecting] staff from different ethnic backgrounds … It was not done with any ill intent,” New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park said.
“We didn’t want people coming in and trying to engage with her or threaten her or make any comments to people who had already been through hell and back,” he explained.
He dismissed concerns about the two nurses in the video, saying they were just “two bad apples” and that “Jewish people are safe in Sydney hospitals … they are safe in Western Sydney hospitals with Jewish names.”
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