Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan had words of praise Monday for the level of health care he observed in Israel on a recent visit there.
But at the same time, he said the Jewish state needed to work harder to provide adequate care to Palestinians. He also warned of a severe strain on health services with the new influx of Soviet immigrants.
Speaking at the 76th annual national convention of Hadassah, Sullivan praised the Zionist organization’s continued commitment to health care for Arabs and Jews alike, as embodied in the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center facilities at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus.
Sullivan said he learned in Israel “that when a patient crosses the threshold of Hadassah, that patient is treated with dignity, respect and love,” despite the fact that “minutes earlier that patient may have been a disruptive hate-monger, peddling violence and destruction in a land that for too long has not known lasting peace.”
He praised that attitude, saying that “health care must stand above the fray” of Middle East politics.
The Cabinet official said he had discussed the issue of providing quality health care to Palestinians in meetings with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and President Chaim Herzog, as well as Israeli officials at a recent meeting of the World Health Organization in Geneva.
He said he had been told by both Jewish and Palestinian health-care providers that “while health care has improved immeasurably for all people in Israel during the last 20 years, many Palestinians still do not have access to the affordable, high-tech health care system available to most Israelis.”
As he has before previous Jewish audiences, the nation’s only black Cabinet official denounced anti-Semitic statements made by “demagogues or misguided individuals” who claim to “speak for the black community.”
Sullivan mentioned a recent appearance in Washington by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and his followers. He called their anti-Semitic rhetoric “shameful, outrageous and stupid.”
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