Medicine Gemachs

Prilosec is usually OTC, IIRC. Maybe a drug store should have it?

The newcomers guide and the madrich chareidi both list numerous medicine gmachs

Good luck

It’s long been off patents, available generically, and frequently with a prescription. The seminary can refer you to a pharmacist who knows the local brand name. Why import from America where it is probably more expensive (and may turn out to have been shipped from Israel to begin with, since they manfucture in Israel).

Do medicine gemachs have medicinal marijuana?

The brand name is Omepradex in Israel. I think they have an OTC version.

Why can’t someone mail your medicine from the US. How do you know that the drugs haven’t been in their medicine cabinet for five years?

SB -“Health: I didn’t take it yesterday, and when I was unable to help so much during my chessed time at Yad Eliezer, I also could barely eat anything for dinner. This is not the time to get angry. I am telling you that even if it is for it’s “placebo effects” that at least it worked when I took it.”

Prilosec OTC is for GERD and/or heartburn. Any other use is by prescription from a Gastro. Unless you have these symptoms – you shouldn’t take Prilosec. Taking a Med for its’ “placebo effects” can be dangerous. Contrary to popular belief, Hashem gave us acid in the stomach for a reason. We actually need this acid.

And if you do end up going to a Gastro and he/she diagnoses IBS -there are medications that can be prescribed for this.

SB – Try to contact one of these Frum medical orgs. Tell them your situation. I’m sure they can hook you up with a PCP that will give you a referral. Ask for a referral to a Gastro, Psychologist and a Psychiatrist.

SB -“Which frum medical organizations do you recommend.”

I don’t recommend any – I haven’t been there in years. Why don’t you address some of the posters here from Israel?

The only one I’ve heard of is Ezra Lemarpe. Here is their webpage and they do offer referrals. On their website -they list ways to contact them:

http://www.ezra-lemarpe.org

Prilosec is omeprazole. If it isn’t OTC in EY, it is because of the scam Kupat Cholim system that keeps many drugs RX to perpetuate the socialist insurance system.

There was a pharmacy in the Machane Yehuda market where the pharmacist broke the rules, at least for people who clearly came from abroad. I don’t know if it is still there or if the pharmacist can still do what she once did.

The doctors in Wolfson charge ridiculous prices. I paid NIS 200 just for a surgeon to give me a price quote on needless cosmetic surgery, and that was in 1996. The surgeon should have just taken one look and told me not to bother with what I was considering.

TheBearIsBack -“The doctors in Wolfson charge ridiculous prices. I paid NIS 200 just for a surgeon to give me a price quote on needless cosmetic surgery, and that was in 1996. The surgeon should have just taken one look and told me not to bother with what I was considering.”

Your complaint is absurd. I asked my friend, a Doc, who lives here and there, 3 weeks on – 3 weeks off. Going to Wolfson is like going to Park Ave. or UES in Manhattan and complaining the Docs there charge too much. The Docs in Wolfson are for the upper class Israelis -so of course they charge an arm and a leg.

This doesn’t mean they are better or worse than anyone else.

Health, there happens to be a clinic in one of the Wolfson towers that accepts student health insurance (as well as the Kupot Cholim). It is a very large, multispecialty practice, proving rather standard medical care. It is not a ritzy practice by any means. Perhaps your friend does not know about this practice. Otherwise your friend is right, Wolfson is one of the areas of Yerushalayim where there are many wealthy people.

Health, as I am sure you are aware, you can get SUB-standard care ANYWHERE. I have personally been treated in the past in that office, both by regular doctors and also by a surgeon. My husband had hernia repair by a surgeon who sees patients in that office and we both received totally adequate care. As a matter of fact, my surgeon was an American who was living here and has subsequently gone back to the US. He was up to date on the issues pertinent to my case (whether to use mesh in my hernia repair given the fact that I was still of childbearing age). I do not feel that we received substandard care at all.

I am BH able to afford the clinic in Wolfson (especially back then when prices weren’t what they are now – I also carry worldwide insurance that would cover real care in Wolfson), and when I asked for a referral I told the referring doctor I was willing to pay for good work. If I wanted care in EY, I would not hesitate to try that clinic again for another specialty.

However, I earn my money the old-fashioned way. I do not like to be cheated, especially by medical personnel who judge me by my charedi dress and don’t realize that I understand everything they tell me and then some.

There was no real corrective operation for the scar on my hand, and the doctor knew this. (There may be one now thanks to medical lasers, but I could care less to have it corrected.) He also knew that my minor complaint of dirt accumulating in it would resolve with time, and it did. He could have told me that over the phone. Instead, this creep, an American who was probably frustrated at making aliyah (or perhaps was running from a malpractice suit or a board disciplinary action) tried to sell me a useless procedure, which would have been OK if he had not charged me for the privilege. He should have charged me a symbolic fee and told me the truth, which was that I had a problem that was not worth taking care of. This was not a matter of a real condition that needed top-notch care.

His (lacking) ethics are pretty much in line with what I experienced from many RZ/MO “professionals” in EY, whether olim or locals. They think charedim are captive patients and clients because we’d rather have shomrei Shabbos professionals. I happen found out that he and his wife, also an MD, practice and advocate a dangerous alternative diet. Had I known that back then, I would not have gone to him on moral grounds.

In the US, I would not have even asked a rov for a heter – I would have contacted the licensing board. I don’t have a heter to expose him online, and I doubt it would do me any good to do so given his particular specialty. If he wants to make money doing nose jobs on rich kallahs from the US, let him do so.

This is the clinic in Wolfson Towers, and at least back then it was very fancy but it did accept at least one kupat cholim. It was so fancy that when I was there, the receptionist threw out a frum askan who brought two poor people in need of help and for whom he was willing to cover all charges. I should have walked out then as I was thinking of doing – I don’t need to get care at Mirpaat Sdom veAmorah.

The doctor actually hinted to me that if I made aliyah, he’d pull some shtick with Makabi and give me a good deal as if the surgery were medically indicated. A real tzaddik, gematriya 80:90.

What a difference between those menuvelach and the Chabad BT doctor in CH who gave me a free flu shot based on my word that I carried a particular insurance (I did not have my card yet) – he was so overworked he could not even accept me as a patient and I don’t even remember how I ended up giving his receptionist proof of insurance so he could get reimbursed (I think she called the company to verify my coverage).

I have heard that Terem is a slight glimmer of light in the dark tunnel of EY medical care.

The real glimmers of light in medinas Sdoim, where curable patients die because proven lifesaving medications are not included in “the basket,” are Ezra laMarpeh (Rav Firer), Ezer meTzion etc – but chas vesholom anyone should need their assistance in obtaining care outside of EY. My friend and neighbor in CH used to collect money to obtain lifesaving medications in the US and send them to critical care patients whose plights were made known to him by his relatives in EY.

Bear -“There was no real corrective operation for the scar on my hand, and the doctor knew this. (There may be one now thanks to medical lasers, but I could care less to have it corrected.)”

I’m not into plastics and I didn’t see your hand, but even without lasers you can correct some scars with Z-plasty.

“His (lacking) ethics are pretty much in line with what I experienced from many RZ/MO “professionals” in EY, whether olim or locals. They think charedim are captive patients and clients because we’d rather have shomrei Shabbos professionals. I happen found out that he and his wife, also an MD, practice and advocate a dangerous alternative diet. Had I known that back then, I would not have gone to him on moral grounds.”

In a way you’re right, but mainly I think they are out to take advantage of americans. But they sound like the types that would take advantage of anyone that they can, including Charedim, Americans, Chilonim or anybody. (Of course besides Arabs.)

147 – I don’t think chometz was the issue with her not getting her medication before Pesach, rather the fact that she can get it only in America and that seems to be the next time that she expects to be going there.