Israel's Sheba Hospital sued by disabled candidate over inaccessibility

The Commission for Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities, which is a unit within the Justice Ministry, filed a lawsuit against Sheba Medical Center and the Health Ministry at the Tel Aviv Labor Court on the grounds that the hospital discriminated against a woman in the hiring process due to her disability, according to a Walla report on Tuesday.

The lawsuit, amounting to 70,000 shekels, was filed on behalf of Ricky Foxman. Foxman is 29 years old from Bnei Brak, and has graduted with a bachelors degree in psychology from Bar Ilan University and has a teacubg certificate. She also lives with cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair.

The filing claims that Foxman submitted her resume for a position as a daytime therapeutic instructor in the eating disorders unit at Sheba Medical Center. In her application, Foxman stated that she uses a wheelchair and therefore would need to work in a wheelchair-accessible environment. 

As part of the application process, she had to select which schedule she would be interested in working around. Foxman, who keeps Shabbat, chose the option for daytime treatments, which would require her to work from Sunday Until Thursday.

According to Foxman, she messaged them again on the same day to ensure the workplace was wheelchair accessible. 

Sheba Medical Center, which reportedly delayed their response to Foxman, responded that they apologize for the long wait for a response, and clarified that they were checking if the workplace could be made wheelchair accesible. They then responded that, unfortunately it was not possible due to " space restiants of the hospital" and that it wouldnt be "so comfortable."

Foxman then reportedly responded to the mail, asking if, according to the hospital's response, there was no point in her arriving for a job interview. The hospital responded by saying that if she was interested in working night and weekend shifts, they could organize an interview for her. This was despite ethe fact that she already clarified in her applcaition process that those shifts were irrelevant for her.

"I felt humiliated and disrespected, and was filled with anger and enorumous pain with the hospital's answer," Foxman said in an interview with Walla.

After she contacted the Commision for Equal Rights for Persons With Disabilities, Foxman discovered that workplaces in israel must be wheelchair accesible. She then returned to Sheba Medical Center and insisted on a position. The hospital replied that an interview could not be held since she did not respond to their email. They also repeated their initial repsonse that the wokplace was not able to be made accessible, and even said that in the meantime, all of the positions for the role she requested had been filled.

In an attempt to reach a compromise, a lawyer from the Commission and Dr. Adi Hanoch Levy, director of the eating disorders department at the hospital, held a telephone conversation. In the conversation, Dr. Levy repeated the claim that the room was not accessible and even added a new claim. 

According to her, the role that Foxman tried to qualify for requires escorting patients to various treatments, this escorting sometimes involves chasing after patients and therefore, due to her disability - they insisted that Foxman is not suitable.

"The thing that hurts the most for me is that I did an internship in my third year of studies at Sheba Medical Center. I thought that maybe there I would open the way to the world of therapy, a place that I loved and I love very much, but that's where I got shut down," Foxman said. "They were beyond all criticism, their behavior is unthinkable, I will not give up and will go with this until he end so that everyone will understand that people with disabilities can work in many jobs and integrate into the Israeli economy."

Unfortunately for Foxman, this is not the first place that disqualified her due to her disability. "It's always done in a nice way and they invite me in for an interview and then they come up with some kind of excuse and in the end I'm not accepted. Here, it was clear and seamless. Even seeing me, they didn't see how opaque it was possible to be. We are in a state of war, there are thousands of wounded and disabled We are new in Israel, and if the state's hospitals put a stop to us, then what will the various businesses say? The doors are closing in my face one after the other, but I will not give up."

Sheba Medical Center hasn't met the quota for disabled employees for years

In the statement of claim to the court, the Commission for Equality of Rights for Persons with Disabilities stated that the Sheba Medical Center did not meet the conditions of adequate representation for persons with disabilities, which requires at least 5% representation as of 2023 - the hospital meets a low threshold for employing workers with disabilities, with a figure of less than -3% representation. 

Reports also noted that this condition had not been met for five years in a row at Sheba. Also, the Health Ministry does not meet the conditions and is at the medium level, with less than 5% representation.

"This is one of the most serious cases in which I have encountered employment discrimination," said attorney Sigalit Porat-Gorenstein, who is in charge of employment claims at the Commission for Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities. 

"And here knocks on his door a brave girl with a disability, who stood tall, graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology and in general asked to work in a job that matches her skills, experience and education. The hospital had to make the workplace accessible and make some basic adjustments. A short visit to a furniture store and a little goodwill would probably have been enough."

"What message is being conveyed to the public by Sheba and the Ministry of Health? That a person with a disability cannot be hired because he or she moves around in a wheelchair? And what if it was a soldier who was wounded in the war? The fact that it is a state as an employer emphasizes the importance and sensitivity of the aforementioned case" added Porat-Gorenstein.

Commissioner for Equality of Rights for People with Disabilities, Dan Rashel, said: "The employment of people with disabilities is an extremely important issue and a key tool on the way to the full integration of the population of people with disabilities into society and the economy. Beyond that, it is also a legal obligation - one must act to fulfill it and not only admit that she is right. It is our intention, at the Commission for Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities in the Justice Ministry, to continue acting in accordance with our authority in order to enforce the Law on Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities, also on this issue."

Sheba Medical Center's response

The Sheba Medical Center stated: "By our very nature, we encourage the integration of people with disabilities in the labor market in general and in the Sheba Medical Center in particular. As part of this concept, the Sheba Medical Center employs workers with disabilities. In order to expand this employment model, we are running a unique project that combines young people with disability in a wide variety of roles".

"In order for the combination to be optimal and correct in the long term, both for the candidate and the organization, we offer the appropriate positions per the candidate's education, experience, and skills. This was also the case in this case," they added.

There was no response from the Health Ministry.