Cabinet Delays Taking Action to Alleviate Health Care Crisis

Israelis who had hoped that the Cabinet would take decisive action Monday to alleviate the nation’s health care crisis were disappointed when the ministerial body decided not to act on a proposal to set up a state commission that would issue binding recommendations on the problem.

Meanwhile, a new strike hit government and Kupat Holim hospitals Monday, leaving wards staffed by skeleton crews. Outpatient clinics were closed. Cancer and kidney dialysis units were administered only by nurses. It was the first time patients in those departments were without full medical care.

President Chaim Herzog proposed last week that a state investigatory commission be appointed to look into the series of strikes, work stoppages and other disruptions that have plagued the nation’s hospitals for more than a year.

The initial reaction was mixed and a Cabinet meeting was scheduled for Monday to consider the matter. But when the ministers convened, they decided to suspend debate on the proposal until they could study the report of a professional committee headed by Professor Natan Trainin of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The delay infuriated public sector doctors.

The Trainin committee was appointed a year ago by Health Minister Shoshana Arbeli-Almoslino and published its findings last week. It concluded that the state of the economy made it impossible for the government to increase its health budget.

This is exactly what Finance Minister Moshe Nissim has maintained in response to wage demands by medical and non-medical health service personnel.

The committee also proposed introducing private health care in government hospitals to operate in tandem with the socialized health system. Among other things, this would be expected to end the prolonged waiting period for elective surgery, sometimes more than a year.

Most of the committee’s proposals were said to be unacceptable to the health minister, who is a Laborite. Private health care has been advocated chiefly by the Likud, the finance minister’s party.

Trainin told a television interviewer Monday that he recommended the establishment of a national hospitals authority to oversee the day-by-day operation of hospitals, leaving the Health Ministry to deal only with overall public health policy and not professional matters.

Professor Yehezkel Dror, the Trainin committee’s deputy chairman, struck at the core of the health care crisis when he observed that Israel’s per capita gross national product “is between a third and a half that of highly industrial countries, but value-wise, we want the same level of medical care as the highly developed and rich countries.”