A harassed Jewish doctor at the Karolinska University Hospital offered a delay in waiting

"They offered me the same opportunity, but of course I did not accept that," the Jewish doctor told DN.

It was last week that Aftonbladet wrote that a Jewish doctor and two Jewish colleagues had felt harassed by a surgeon at the Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. The mobbing has been going on for a few years and constitutes a refusal to participate in international conferences invited by the Jewish doctor as a lecturer. An anti-Semitic mirage of the type "Here Judge Hate", which refuses any possibility of performing certain operations and ending at the bottom of the payroll of the clinic despite high qualifications.

"You only feel the inability," says the doctor exposed. We who operate patients need work, this harassment is also a patient safety issue.

The designated surgeon also published a series of anti-Semitic images and cartoons on social media that have been reviewed by three reputable organizations: the Swedish Forum on Anti-Semitism, the Living History Forum and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, United States. They found that the images were "without a doubt anti-Semites".

Already in February was alerted The management of the Karolinska University Hospital said that there was antisemitic harassment at the clinic in question and that it had not seriously addressed the problems. In a letter to the director of the hospital, Melvin Samsom, the Jewish doctor's lawyer described a few months later the inadequate internal investigation into the harassment. It was administered by a professor from the clinic – including the regular doctor and a colleague of the surgeon – who had called the employees face to face to ask them if they had ever had an antisemitic mood at the clinic.

The internal investigation was criticized for not being objective, handled by a person without a thorough knowledge of the complexity of anti-Semitism and, furthermore, respondents had not had the opportunity to 39, be anonymous. According to critics, this last point was important because a 2016 staff survey revealed that 25% of the clinician's staff felt that they had been harassed.

"No one dared," said the Jewish doctor.

According to DN sources Has the mental work environment of the clinic in question been difficult for several years?

"And it's not just our Jewish doctors, I want all staff, regardless of nationality, sexual orientation or religious affiliation, to feel safe working in Karolinska, says the doctor.

In mid-October of this year, Abraham Cooper, one of the founders of the human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote a very brief letter to the director of the hospital's KS, Annika Tibell. One of them was very concerned that the hospital management had ignored the harassment. "I write to you with great sadness," begins the letter and, later, Abraham Cooper finds that the internal investigation into the case, which would be conducted by two psychologists of the MGT, "is not that a blow to the suffering of the Jewish victims affected ".

Cooper offered to Tibell help the knowledge and warned the hospital management for another scandal like the Macchiarinia affair. Annika Tibell responded that management had hired a law firm to investigate the case and rejected the offer by referring to the appeals by the expert to external expertise.

"There is a culture that everything is done in-house and it is not easy to denounce a former doctor Karolinska for harassment because of his retaliation," says the Jewish doctor.

Abraham Cooper also notes that Karolinska management through the Human Resources Department intended to draw up a list of Jewish doctors at KS who had been subjected to antisemitic harassment. That's to say, writes Cooper, "an unacceptable and egregious offense".

Annika Tibell says at DN that's all a misunderstanding. Such a registry has never been up to date. On the contrary, the intention was to encourage people exposed to undue discrimination to inform the employer.

According to Annika Tibell, the management is also determined to meet with representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center shortly. With respect to the time given to the designated surgeon and the harassed physician, she replied:

"This can be a constraint for both parties when an investigation is underway that affects their work.

Will the surgeon be removed from the salary during his absence?

– Yes. The investigation is not over, they are informed and investigations are ongoing, so yes, during the time limit they are paid, says Annika Tibell.

According to the president of the union union, Karolinska University Hospital, Yvonne Dellmark, it is up to the employer to decide whether a person who took a leave should receive a salary during his absence or not. It is not legally regulated.

Did this case hurt KS and maybe Nobel?

"I hope that the good that is happening on a daily basis in Karolinska is increasingly exposed.The most important thing for which this notification should not harm Karolinska's reputation is that we show that we are looking very seriously at this kind of question. and act with vigor and transparency, "said Annika Tibell.