A major crisis in the HMO Clalit: CEO Ruth Ralbag announced she has resigned after only nine months

A major crisis in the HMO that manages half of the health system in Israel: Clalit Health Services CEO Ruth Ralbag announced today (Thursday) that she has resigned after only nine months in the position. Ralbag will not remain even until a replacement is appointed, and in the meantime Eli Cohen, CEO of the Mor Institute for the position of acting director until a new CEO is elected.
A search committee chaired by board chairman Yohanan Locker has been appointed by the board. The term.
Ralbag's resignation comes as no surprise, and rumors of her departure began earlier this month. The resignation comes against the backdrop of an inspection report by a committee on behalf of the board of directors that indicates a fear of a conflict of interest in the fund's contract with the consulting firm MNS, where Ralbag's daughter works. Ralbag requested the appointment of an independent external examiner, but her application was denied.
In recent months, the fund has gone through many crises, including a severe clash between Ralbag and the management with the fund's workers' committee, and a crisis at Clalit's Emek Hospital in Afula. The crisis in the hospital began amid harsh allegations by hospital department heads of systematic deprivation and neglect of the peripheral hospital by the fund's management, and breach of management promises to turn it into a tertiary hospital (super center) of the northern region. Relbag's working relationship with the employees involved many clashes, and at one point the relationship between her and the dominant fund chairman John Locker also ran aground.
Although Ralbag's announcement was expected, it is a very big shake-up to the fund, which has been suffering from instability for a very long time. Relbag is the second CEO in less than a year to leave the fund immediately and during his term. However, even in previous years there was no stability in the fund's management, and since 2017, three CEOs have left the fund before the end of the term.
Fund and health system executives point the finger of blame at board chairman John Locker, whose short tenure in the past two and a half years has seen two CEOs retire amid a murky relationship with him, and Ralbag even had his personal choice for the job. Now, he is once again chairing the search committee whose job it is to appoint the next CEO.
Locker is known as a highly centralized manager who is involved in the small details of fund management, down to the level of participation in working meetings of hospital and district managements in general. On the other hand, he makes sure to stay behind the scenes in public and also did not give public backing to Ralbag in confrontations she was at the center of, such as the Valley affair or the conflict with the workers' committee. According to a senior health official, "in the test of the result it is his failure, because under his management there is an unreasonable turnover of CEOs. "Something there is not working well, and when it is the most important fund in the country - it is already a national problem."
Ralbag wrote to Clalit employees that "I informed Clalit's board of directors of my resignation and thanked them for their cooperation. My departure is accompanied by a feeling that I did not complete what I came to do, but I say goodbye with satisfaction with many achievements. ".