The Ministry of Health has asked the government for a 2,000,000-pound–approximately $6,000,000–allocation in its current budget, in addition to an emergency grant of 600,000 pounds for urgently-needed hospital beds throughout the country.
Reporting to the Israeli Knesset today, Health Minister Moshe Shapira reviewed plans for increasing the present hospital-capacity by 1,000 beds, but stressed that even this measure would not meet the present needs and would leave a nation-wide shortage of 5,500 hospital beds. Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan will negotiate with to Jewish Agency and Hadassah to get them to participate in this program, Shapira said.
Shapira, who is also Minister of Immigration, reported that prompt action by Israeli authorities prevented the outbreak of typhoid in Acre and smallpox in the Nazareth area.
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