Eilat Mayor Meir Yitzchak Halevy used Tuesday’s tragic bus accident near Eilat to once again point out to the national government that the area’s only hospital desperately needs to be upgraded, explaining that the medical facility is not designed to care for a mass causality incident as was seen again on Tuesday.

“It is unfortunate that I must use this tragedy to once again plea my case but for years I have been calling upon the government and healthcare system to address the need to upgrade Yosef-Tal to meet the needs of today,” stated Halevy.

Halevy is seeking for a $10 million allocation for construction and an unspecified sum for medical improvements and increasing the facility’s staff.

Yosef-Tal was established in the 1960s and is owned and operated by the Clalit HMO. The facility has 65 beds and generally, an occupancy rate of about 10%. In actuality, it was slated for closure in the past, but this was avoided due to protests from Eilat’s hoteliers and the city’s mayor, explaining if Yosef-Tal is gone then patients will have to commute three hours to Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)