Private hospitals and clinics were required to stop the surgeries, map out their respirators and medical staff - in favor of the national fight against the Corona epidemic
"The health system needs the help of all the staff in the system." Elisha Private Hospital // Photo: Hertzi Shapira
An unprecedented step in the history of the health system, due to the outbreak of the Corona epidemic: The Ministry of Health ordered Thursday (Thursday) to close within two days of scheduled (elective) surgeries and treatments in all hospitals, private clinics and clinics where tens of thousands of private surgeries and treatments are performed each year. In addition, the Ministry of Health has instructed private hospitals to send to it as soon as possible the list of all respirators, anesthesiologists and equipment for respiratory patients in these hospitals.
Photo: Ministry of Health
The message was forwarded to the Assuta hospital administrators of Maccabi Health Insurance Fund, to Medical Center Hospital in Herzliya, which is partially owned by the General Health Fund, Elisha Hospital in Haifa, and about 20 private clinics and institutes operating in Israel. It is estimated that these hospitals perform hundreds of thousands of surgeries and surgeries a year.
The announcement was made on the back of serious claims by senior health officials, some private-sector physicians, who told "Israel Today" that while the Ministry of Health requires the public to be almost completely closed - it continues to allow senior doctors to perform hundreds of private surgeries, most of which are not urgent at all. In the doctors' opinion, this is not only a violation of the health system's readiness in the medical emergency, but a serious moral and public injury.
In an extraordinary letter this evening, Dr. Vered Ezra, head of the medical department at the Ministry of Health, wrote to all hospital managers and private institutes, she states that, "in light of the proliferation of the Corona epidemic and the reference scenario under which the Israeli health system is organized, according to which there are about 5,000 10,000 hospitalized patients in moderate to severe condition in the country need national mobilization of the entire health system, which includes all hospitals and clinics. The mobilization will include all of the personnel inputs and equipment essential to care for the particularly difficult patients. "
Dr. Ezra asked private hospital administrators to make a two-day advance notice of the planned outage, announcing that hospitals would be set up and exceptional committees to authorize emergency action only. Dr. Ezra also requested that hospitals do a mapping of all non-hospital nurses and staff Work in the field of public medicine, and provide mapping of all machines and respiratory equipment. Dr. Ezra further noted that "in order to cope with the expected scenario, the healthcare system needs the assistance of all staff in the system and the cooperation of all those working within it."
It should be noted that a week ago, Dr. Meir Cohen, chairman of the Israeli Association of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery at the Medical Association, wrote to all the union members that the union recommends that doctors "cease to perform treatments and surgeries by the end of March." Dr. Cohen noted that "performing aesthetic analyzes in the private system while the public system faces difficult national challenges - is unethical."
