Back in February 2011, almost two years ago, the government decided there was an urgency, a need to add 960 beds to Israel’s national hospitals. It was reported that due to population growth there was a need to add beds to the hospital system, which is stretched to capacity every year during the winter flu season.
According to a Yisrael Hayom report, in 2011-2012, 380 beds were added to the nation’s hospital system, 130 in internal medicine wards and others in intensive care and delivery units. 190 additional beds are planned for 2013 which will bring a total of 570 additional beds since that decision in 2011.
Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Roni Gamzu says the systems failure to add 1,000 beds represents one of the ministry’s major failures. “Patients are lying in hallways in far too many hospitals” Gamzu added.
Dr. Leonid Edelman, who heads the Israel Medical Association, agrees with Gamzu, adding “A government decision to add beds is insufficient. The incoming government must abandon plans for health system cuts and add new beds system wide” he concluded.
Many hospitals around Israel on Sunday, 16 Shevat 5773 reported internal medicine wards were stretched beyond capacity. This includes:
1. Assaf HaRofeh Hospital in Rishon L’Tzion (128%)
2. Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon (144%)
3. Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah (118%)
4. Bnei Tzion Hospital in Haifa (125%)
5. Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Yerushalayim (109%)
6. HaEmek Hospital in Afula (147%)
7. Hillel Yafeh Hospital in Hadera (154%)
8. Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv (128%)
9. Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital in Bnei Brak (170%)
10. Nahariya Hospital (137%)
11. Poriah Hospital in Tiveria (107%)
12. Rambam Medical Center in Haifa (117%)
13. Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Yerushalayim (145%)
14. Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer in Tel Aviv (112%)
15. Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva (118%)
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5 Responses
so its not just the US thats going downhill
As a nurse pointed out to me the other day, we bring them patients with sirens as urgent only for them to then be stuck waiting in the ER (just to nuance that the really urgent cases do get immediate care, but a lot of other cases that are defined urgent transport may end up waiting hours in the ER)
This article does not account for the Bikur Cholim hospital that YWN reported closed down
In February 1969, while serving in a certain armored regiment in the IDF, I was taken very seriouslt ill and rushed to Poria Hospital.
Notwithstanding the remonstrations and the pleas of the IDF Northern Command’s chief medical officer I spent my first two and a half weeks lying in a bed in a busy and crowded hallway. Aside from anything else, there was absolutely no privacy – not even when I wished to perform the most intimate of body functions.
I bore the hospital authorities absolutely no malice at the time, and nor do I do so now. There never was adequate bed space in Israeli hospitals.
Socialized medicine in action.