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Medical inequalities noted between the Center and the Periphery
A new Ministry of Health report shows immense differences in the quality of medical care between the periphery regions of Israel and the Center; minister of health: 'Ministry using all tools at its disposal to fix problem.'
The Ministry of Health released a document highlighting the inequality in health care between the Periphery regions of Israel and the Center of the country.
The average life expectancy for men in 2015 was 80.1 (a decline of .2 years) while the average life expectancy for women remained constant at 84.1.
The areas with the highest mortality rates per 1,000 people were in the Be'er Sheva and Jezreel Valley regions, while the lowest mortality rates per 1,000 people was in the Petah Tikva region and in the West Bank.
The infant mortality rate in Israel stood at 3.1 deaths per 1,000 births in 2015. The infant mortality rate for Jews stood at 2.2 deaths per 1,000, while it stood at 6.2 per 1,000 for Arabs. The rate of infant mortality went down in the North for the first time since 2010.
Hospital (Photo: Shutterstock)
There has been a decline in infant mortality rates in the South, Haifa region, and in the Center, while there has been an increase in the rate in the Jerusalem area.
Israel has 15,487 hospital beds, with a large discrepancy in the number of those beds between the Center and the Periphery. There are 1.8 beds per 1,000 people in Israel.
The inequality in the health care system is one of the most worrying things about Israeli society," Health Minister Yakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism). "The issue has been at the forefront since I began my first term as health minister in 2010, and the ministry is using all the tools at its disposal to fix it."
