Officials at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center insist the fiscal crisis is so serious that it has exhausted its budget for purchasing life-saving drugs and as a result, it is now compelled to send some patients to other hospitals for treatment.

Professor Shimon Reisner serves as Rambam’s deputy director in addition to being the chairman of the Forum of Government Hospitals. He sent an email to his colleagues spelling out the bleak situation, that Rambam’s pharmaceutical supply is waning and the medical center lacks life-saving drugs.

Reisner explains that he has turned to the appropriate official in the Ministry of Health, explaining that patients with complicated medical situations requiring expensive pharmaceutical intervention may have to be diverted to other facilities, facilities that still have money remaining. He calls for urgent ministry intervention.

Prof. Reisner includes an email sent to him by the medical center’s head of pharmaceutical services in which he describes the emergency situation. He also included a number of orders for medications that await approval, which will not occur due to the lack of available funding. He points out he has been warning of this for months and the medical center has cut back many non-essential procedures and taken other cost-cutting measures. He explains that now that the situation is critical he is compelled to provide the ministry with an update of the situation.

Directors of other government run hospitals admit the situation in their facilities is not as critical but they caution, if left unresolved their situations may worsen as well.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)