Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has allocated NIS 20 million to upgrade teaching at hospitals in the north for the benefit of students at the medical school in Tzfat.  This is in addition to the NIS 30 million which the government allocated to the establishment of the school. The decision was made in the framework of a meeting of the ministerial team on advancing the establishment of a medical school in the north.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, Negev& Galilee Development Minister Silvan Shalom, Education Minister Gideon Saar and Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman will submit the decision for Cabinet approval on Sunday (Sept. 18).

The medical school, which is affiliated with Bar-Ilan University, is due to open next month in Tzfat.  It will operate on a new format in Israel – a four-year course.

124 students will study at the school this year; approximately 70 of them are Israeli students who have been studying at universities abroad and who have returned to Israel in order to complete the practical stage of their medical education.  The state has promised that students learning abroad will be integrated into the Israeli medical system and will increase the number of doctors in the periphery.

Staff members were mostly recruited from leading universities abroad.  Some of them are immigrating to Israel with their families, while others are Israelis who are returning home to live in the Galilee.

Clinical departments at hospitals in Tzfat, Nahariya, Nazareth and Tiveria will be upgraded so as to adapt them for medical studies.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that, “This is part of a national project that will upgrade the Galilee, bring changes to the hospitals, create employment and thus benefit the entire population, as well as the high-tech industry in the north.”

This decision is in keeping with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policy of reducing gaps between the periphery and the center of the country and creating jobs, in the framework of which a series of decisions have been made, including the allocations of NIS 27 billion for the construction of a network of highways and railways, and NIS 19 billion to move IDF bases to the Negev.  The recent agreement with the Israel Medical Association also strengthens medical care in the periphery.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)