Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman has announced that they are going to convert two mental institutions to work in a mehadrin format, one being converted to men only and one to female only.

This of course caused an uproar, as many, including in the medical field, are calling it religious coercion, and they point out that nowhere in the world is this done.

Litzman's response is that he receives a lot of complaints about what goes in in the hospitals. He says many people refuse to provide the necessary treatments because of it. He is simply taking two hospitals that are not at full capacity right now and running his trial system on them. I would note that he does not specify what the problems are in the mental hospitals, just that they exist and because of them people do not provide treatment to members of their families who require it.

Now even if you are crazy you have nothing to worry about. No need to look at women... I imagine that if Litzman had been made Deputy Minister of Transportation (it was suggested at the time of the building of the coalition to give the Transportation Ministry to the UTJ, but was rejected because it was not prestigious enough), we would all be riding in mehadrin buses and trains right now...

In the video you can see Litzman respond on the issue. I have no idea what the main topic of discussion was, as he is sitting with the various haredi mayors, and I see no reason why this would be their topic of a meeting, so they were probably talking about something else when this issue came up...