Israel to Bail Out Hadassah Hospital Victimized by Madoff

Israel’s finance minister says the government will rescue a Jerusalem hospital that has been plagued by claims of fiscal mismanagement and whose backer, U.S. Jewish charity Hadassah, lost tens of millions of dollars to Bernard Madoff’s fraud, Bloomberg reports.

Hadassah Medical Center faces a $360-million deficit, and many of its doctors and nurses have been on strike since last week over unpaid wages. Israeli officials said feuds between American and Israeli board members, overstaffing, and high salaries for some top employees have hobbled the hospital’s finances, already compromised by the Madoff scandal.

“Hadassah [Medical Center] won’t close. We won’t let it fall,” Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said in a radio interview Thursday. “The government will put in money, but on condition that when the money is used up, the hospital will be financially robust.”

The Hadassah charity, a women’s Zionist group, had some $90-million invested with the now-jailed swindler when his $65-billion Ponzi scheme unraveled in late 2008. Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article about Hadassah’s efforts to recover from the scandal.