Channels

(Photo: Yonatan Bloom)
From left: Rafael Beyar, Gabi Barbash and Zeev Rotstein
(Photo: Yonatan Bloom)

Israel's hospitals on life support

State-run medical centers, some 50 millions shekels short, are running out of vital medicines, and have cut staff and delayed sugeries as a budgetary crisis takes hold.

Are the state-run hospitals about to be left without funds to purchase life-saving drugs? The hospital directors claim their 2014 budgets are running very low, with devastating consequences on the horizon.

 

 

A worrying letter made its rounds on Monday among the directors of Israel's state-run hospitals; the sender was Prof. Shimon Reisner, deputy director of Rambam Hospital and chairman of the Forum of Government Hospital Directors. "Rambam is beginning to experience a shortage of life-saving medicines; the purchases budget has run dry," Reisner wrote.

 

L-R: Rafael Beyar, Gabi Barbash and Zeev Rotstein. Living from hand to mouth (Photo: Yonatan Bloom) (Photo: Yonatan Bloom)
L-R: Rafael Beyar, Gabi Barbash and Zeev Rotstein. Living from hand to mouth (Photo: Yonatan Bloom)

 

Rambam is running low on intravenous drugs for patients, antibiotics and certain cancer medicines too. "We are experiencing that problems are affecting the hospital's functioning," says Rambam Director Prof. Rafael Beyar.

 

The same sentiments were echoed in a statement from Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera that read: "We are in short supply of life-saving drugs. We are doing our best to provide patients with the best possible care."

 

And according to Barzilai Medical Center Director Dr. Chezy Levy, "The money is running out. I am cutting back on certain antibiotics, sophisticated anticoagulant drugs and more. I'm not talking about over-the-counter painkillers. These drugs are all vital. We are at the end of our tether."

 

Things at Sheba Medical Center are tough too. "We are postponing planned surgeries that are not urgent," says Sheba Director Prof. Zeev Rotstein. "We have reduced the number of workers who are not permanent staff; staff intake has been put on hold; and we've cut back on the purchase of new equipment and drugs that are not life-saving medicines."

 

Officials at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon are also voicing concerns. "We'll postpone elective surgeries to next year if we have to," says Wolfson Director Dr. Yitzhak Berlovitz. "It harms the patients and goes against government policy, but one can't have the best of all worlds. The problem is that the entire system is under-budgeted up front, and intentionally so."

 

And according to Ichilov Hospital Director Prof. Gabi Barbash, " and we're delaying payments to suppliers."

 

Assaf HaRofeh Medical Center is running low on adult diapers. "We've been shouting all year that we have no money," says hospital Director Dr. Benny Davidson. "In the coming days, we'll have to transfer funds from the non-urgent patients to the urgent ones."

 

Together, the state-run hospitals are short of some NIS 500 million; and last week, several of the hospital directors approached the Health Ministry for assistance. The problem, the directors say, is an annual one; this year, however, under instructions from the accountant general at the Finance Ministry, they can no longer roll over this year's expenses to next year's budget and must make do with what they have for 2014 – which isn't enough.

 

Hospital directors and treasury and Health Ministry officials met on Monday for a series of discussions on the matter.

 

"We are unaware of shortages of life-saving drugs," said a subsequent statement from the Health Ministry. "The parties are holding intensive talks with the purpose of dealing with the budgetary problems."

 

 

Finance Ministry officials, for their part, said professional discussions were underway to examine the budgetary situations at the hospitals.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.01.14, 08:40
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment