Hospital Directors have come out in protest of the budget that has been allocated to hospitals across Israel by the Finance Ministry. In an article that published by CalCalist news site on Monday, various directors went on record stating that the budget allocated is insufficient and will result in further deficits for the hospitals.

Due to their deficit of more than 150 million shekels, the Finance Ministry together with the Health Ministry said that they will appoint an overseeing accountant for the Assuta hospital in Ashdod.

The appointment comes two months after a similar move was made by the Finance Ministry for Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

“The public health system has seen deficits across the board for numerous years now and the situation will only get worse,” said Professor Rafi Beyar Director of Rambam Medical Center. “The deficit of all Government run hospitals has nearly tripled in the past few years. The main reason is that the government continually decreases the budget for Health services. If a few years ago, the budget was 8 percent of the GDP, it now stands at 7.3 percent and more than 40 percent of that expenditure is spent on private healthcare and not on public. We have gone below the red line.”

In spite of the increase in number of the population and their extended longevity, hospitals who have to now treat more people for a  longer period of time, must make due with the same allocated budget that they had years ago, if not less. “Five years ago, the number of hospital beds available was rated at 1.9 beds per thousand people and people screamed that it wasn’t enough. Today we have less than 1.75 beds per thousand people. It is a ridiculous situation and for some reason people are accepting it. This situation calls for a national awakening.”

Beyar added that his hospital is cutting down in every possible place in order to save funds. “I know the system well. We are making cutbacks everywhere. The appointment of an accountant is not a helpful solution, we simply need a bigger budget. We are already down to a skeleton crew of staff, we purchase the minimal amount of equipment that allows us to function, and in spite of all that, the budget allocated to us is not nearly enough. We are being budgeted to come up with a huge deficit.”

At Assuta hospital in Ashdod, the situation is not better. The hospital opened only one year ago and is expected to attain a deficit of more than 150 million shekels.

“From all of the public hospitals, the salaries we pay here are the lowest. All of our department heads are relatively young doctors who take a lower salary.The problem isn’t bad management on the part of the hospital, it is the government who budgets us for a deficit.”

Professor Gabi Barbash, the former director of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv said: “The fact that the government operates all of the hospitals at a deficit causes there to be a lack of incentive for the directors to try to balance the budgets of the hospitals. They know from the outset that it is impossible. They, therefore, feel free of the burden of keeping the books balanced. In Europe, governments allocate between 9-10 percent of their GDP on healthcare and in North America, it is far higher. The system knows how to function, but in Israel, it functions on the precipice of financial disaster from the beginning. The results are a severe lack of available beds and a severe backlog at the E.R. This results in even acts of violence at times among the public who need to use these services.”

In response to the above, the Finance Ministry issued a statement saying: “Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in spending by the Ministry in support of the hospitals and the public health system. The government has put the healthcare system at t he head of its priorities. The budget allocated to the Healthcare system rose by more than 7 percent in 2018 and by 11 percent in 2017. This is far more than the demographic increase in population in those years.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)