Meretz Calls Sharon's Treatment "One of Largest Political Scandals Ever"

From Haaretz:

Meretz MKs have called for a government investigation into the concealment by doctors of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's medical condition.

Meretz party leader MK Zehava Gal-On said that if a Haaretz inquiry into Sharon's health and the concealment of his condition from the public proves to be accurate, the affair would be "one of the largest political scandals ever in Israel."

The decision to set up a government panel to investigate the affair would require the approval of the Knesset. Meretz will move to push for a probe following the coming Knesset elections.

"The published report revealed that the Kadima gang concealed Sharon's health status from the public in order to advance their own political careers and to win additional seats [in the coming Knesset election]," Gal-On said. "If the report is correct, we are not just talking here about egoism but about dangerous cruelty."

Hadassah Hospital spokeswoman Yael Bossem-Levy dismissed the Haaretz report as containing nothing new. "Everything that appears in the item was discussed at the news conference" where the hole in the septum was disclosed, she said.

While the Meretz charges are hyperbole from a jealous competitor (note the reference to the "Kadima gang"), the spokeswoman's response is chutzpa given the insistence of previous spokesmen that they refused to comment based on the fact that they needed to focus on saving his life.

Specifically, there was nothing reported about CAA or a ventricular aneurysm at the time. It is, of course theoretically possible that she is technically accurate, but no one reported it. It could have been mentioned in such an obfuscated way that no one understood it, particularly since reporters with medical backgrounds were barred from the closed news conference. More likely this is more of the amateurish coverup that has exacerbated the scandal.

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