The Minister of Health asked Katz to increase the amount to NIS 650 million.
Minister Edelstein
Photography:
Oren Ben Hakon - Archive
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein is demanding that the Ministry of Finance increase the budget for the medicine basket to NIS 650 million this year.
This is despite the lack of a state budget, and after the last six years the basket budget was NIS 500 million, without additions.
In a letter to Finance Minister Israel Katz, Edelstein stated: "Even in this challenging period, when the health system is being tested, we must not neglect other areas of health.
The regular work of the Drug Basket Committee must be ensured.
"Unfortunately, the committee was forced to begin its work with uncertainty about the scope of the budget available to it in 2021."
The budget for updating the medicine basket is not fixed and is set annually in agreements between the Ministries of Health and the Ministry of Finance, so in a year when there is no approved state budget there may be a situation where there will be no budget for a medicine basket addition.
This year, 900 new drugs and technologies were submitted to the drug basket, some saving lives and some improving the quality of life, amounting to NIS 3 billion.
In light of the complex political situation, Minister Edelstein proposed an outline for increasing the basket: the Ministry of Health will allocate part of the supplement from an unused budget, and the Ministry of Finance will allocate the supplementary budget from its sources, "as a bridging loan and temporarily until the state budget for 2021."
This is a similar outline to budgeting the drug basket last year, when there was no approved state budget.
Minister Edelstein noted that NIS 50 million of the budget increase will be used for dental care for the elderly as part of the health basket.
"A budget of NIS 650 million for the expansion of the public services basket will be in line for the residents of Israel, who, even in this difficult crisis, expect to receive a proper and up-to-date medical service," the minister added.
The Drug Basket Committee will end tomorrow (Monday) the first round of drug and technology rankings, and move on to more advanced stages where budgetary aspects are also important.
A source in the Ministry of Finance noted last week that the Ministry of Finance also believes that the solution to expanding the drug basket should be from budgetary sources of the Ministry of Health itself, as it was last year, and that in the absence of a state budget there are question marks.
The source also estimated that an increase in the budget increase to the basket beyond the amount of NIS 500 million is not expected, as was given in previous years.
Committee Chairman: "Dependent on budgets"
In a demonstration of patients in front of the medicine basket last week, the chairman of the medicine basket committee, Prof. Shuki Shemer, told them: "This is an amazing committee and a unique model in the world, and like anything - it depends on budgets.
We hear from you and accept the material with sensitivity.
We hope it will be okay because at the moment there is no budget so that we can maximize everyone's health. "
The chairman of the State Physicians 'Association, Prof. Zeev Feldman, said at the patients' demonstration: "If there is a sufficient budget to expand the basket, there is potential to save 4,300 people a year.
It's a lot and each one of them is a world and its fullness - family, friends and an environment that is affected and harmed by the fact that the same patient is not treated.
I call on the government, and especially on the Ministry of Finance and its head, Israel Katz, to define and dispel this uncertainty, and to determine that this year the drug basket committee will be given NIS 750 million. "
Pnina Rosenzweig, CEO of the Ne'eman Association for Victims of a Stroke: "I have been in the field of health for over 20 years.
I go up and down the Knesset stairs with representatives of patients' rights, and every year there is the renewed struggle to add budget and medicine to the basket - and this year there is no budget.
I was both a girl and an old woman, and I see how every time patients reopen their story to beg the committee to have a budget.
Today there is a corona in the country, and we do not know if we will have a budget and do not know where to turn.
I turn to Katz, as someone who respects history - make a historic change. Stop this difficult thing. Advance legislation so that in the next 20 years we will not have to look for the money in the basket under a flashlight. Make history and make the change. It is neither ethical nor wise at all. Change to look for a budget again. "