Patients at Maccabi were astonished: great difficulty in making an appointment with family doctors • According to them, their job is to free the recovering from the virus from their isolation. It costs them valuable time • Doctor: "Ministry of Health procedures are unreasonable, many have been harmed" • Maccabi response:
The burden on GPs, who are currently treating almost 60,000 Corona patients, is exacerbating, leading to injuries to patients without Corona who need advice from a family doctor.
"We are collapsing under the care of corona patients, and the care of the rest of our patients has been compromised," family doctors warn.
Thus, for example, patients at Maccabi who tried to make an appointment with their family doctors during the week of Sukkot, had difficulty doing so.
The reason: At Maccabi, the hired doctors were instructed not to make new appointments, and to dedicate all their working hours to treating Corona patients through the Maccabi Center for the Treatment of Corona (MMTC). "We are in turbulent days that require emergency measures," the doctors were explained.
Photo: GPO
"A chronic patient who cannot make an appointment with his doctor is a crazy thing. I have quite a few patients who have been affected by a lack of treatment because of the corona," said a doctor at Maccabi, who was asked to dedicate the weekdays exclusively to treating corona patients.
"This is happening because of the irrational procedures of the Ministry of Health. A situation has arisen in which we in the community treat 'full-time' healthy people, who if they had another disease other than corona - we would not treat them at all."
"Leave it to the police"
The doctor emphasizes that "this is a patient who does not need anything from me, but according to the procedure I need to accept him - so to thousands of patients, and then release them."
Family physicians are mainly opposed to the discharge procedure - a patient without symptoms is declared healthy after ten days, without the need for an examination, but a discharge by a doctor is required.
"The release is unreasonable in my eyes, we are doctors and not cops. I do not examine the patient, I just question him on the phone. The Ministry of Health said that brothers and sisters can do the release, but they also collapse.
"Whoever has symptoms and needs us, gets treatment. But to make sure a patient does not leave the house do not need doctors and nurses - it's policing. Leave it to the police, it's just a hallucination. It has neither medicine nor nursing and nothing."
The doctor is particularly outraged at the directive to give up treatment of patients without corona.
"As soon as we are told, take your hours and give them to those who are not 'sick' - it is noticeable. Throughout the week, salaried GPs closed the reception 100% so that they could sit on the phone and on the computer and receive patients who have nothing."
"Heavy price"
He said, "The directive hurts patients who have at once been denied the opportunity to see a doctor. They will stay at home and not take care of themselves. People fall apart mentally during this time. I have never treated so many cases of anxiety and depression."
Another doctor at Maccabi shares: "The whole population is on the edge. There is a lot of work. People who have lost their jobs, people are depressed, some have gained weight, some are on the verge of divorce, and they turn up eight times as usual. I work until 23:00 sometimes. It is a crazy time and unnecessary to load We need unnecessary work. "
The Association of Family Physicians contacted the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levy, and asked him to "facilitate the regulation, cancel tasks whose medical benefit is very low and transfer tasks to the secretariat or computer systems, thus freeing up the time of the medical staff."
The "Barometer" team, experts advising Corona Commissioner Prof. Roni Gamzo, recommended last week that they prioritize the treatment of high-risk corona patients, and even completely eliminate the monitoring of mild and asymptomatic patients.
According to the barometer experts, the procedures for performing admission, follow-up and medical release to a low-risk population are "excessive medicine that is impossible and incorrect in an event of this magnitude", and efforts should be focused on the at-risk population, which will be most beneficial to public health.
Maccabi: "The service continues"
Maccabi responded: "During the holiday and the closure, there was a significant decrease in the demand for medical services. Most of the staff mobilized to receive and release Corona patients while continuing to provide service to all applicants. We are working with the Ministry of Health to change the release process."
The Ministry of Health stated: "We are not familiar with Maccabi's directive to its doctors, not to make appointments for 'non-Corona patients'. If such a directive was indeed given, it is unreasonable.
"There is no doubt that the corona has brought with it a burden, but the Ministry of Health has significantly eased the required follow-up of patients in the community and is looking at other ways to do so, also in terms of providing recovery certificates to patients."
