Committee members unwilling to meet zoom • Father of a sick child: "The wait is nerve-wracking" • The committee responded: "The complexity of the discussions requires physical meetings"
Medication Basket Committee Discussion
Photography:
GPO
The lengthening closure also hurts patients waiting for medication: The committee that was supposed to convene for the weekend hearing has postponed the meeting, and hundreds of thousands of patients currently waiting for the drug basket committee's decision will have to wait another week.
The concluding discussion of the Drug Basket Committee is expected to take place next Monday.
This means that new drugs, some of which are life-saving, will be given to patients no earlier than mid-February.
The basket committee opposes holding the hearings zooming in or out, and explained that due to the constraints of the gathering, it is not possible to gather all 18 members of the committee in one hall and that splitting the members makes it difficult to make decisions.
"Every week of rejection prevents patients from receiving medication. According to my calculation, every week like this means that NIS 10 million worth of medication will not be given to patients and that is a scandal," says Shmulik Ben Yaakov, chairman of the Association for Patient Rights. Make a closure, then a solution to such discussions should be proposed.
Anyone in the country can zoom in, and the only ones who can't hold zoom discussions are committee members?
This is not a serious argument in my eyes.
In the Corona era, patients are deprived because they close wards and postpone treatments, and now they are also postponing the implementation of the decisions of the drug basket committee. "
"Every Week - Fateful"
Dr. Shani Shilo, founder and CEO of the Israeli Lung Cancer Association: "The corona plague broke out almost a year ago, and in large bodies, including the government, the cabinet and the General Staff, discussions are taking place through Zoom.
There's no reason the basket committee will not convene this week, because it does not adopt this technology.
The committee's decisions have been postponed for more than a month, and every day of delay could be fatal for many patients. "
A source in the committee expressed surprise at the decision to postpone the hearings:" It is puzzling to me that the hearings are so delayed.
I really hope that they will take place and end this week. "
About 150 drugs and technologies cost about NIS 2.5 billion in the final discussions, while the committee's budget is NIS 500 million and another lump sum of NIS 50 million (which will be used to bring in treatment for this year alone). The
Public Committee for the Expansion of the Health Services Basket for 2021 stated: "The nature and complexity of the basket committee's discussions require high involvement and work of all committee members together for many hours a day, which is not possible in Zoom.
Therefore, throughout its work this year, the committee made sure to hold physical meetings while observing all the rules of the purple character.
Due to the constraints of the closure and its extension and the tightening of restrictions on gatherings in closed spaces, the Basket Committee was forced to postpone its gathering and final deliberations, and immediately after the closure the committee will resume its deliberations.
At the same time, in order to save time, the Ministry of Health has already begun preparations to issue guidelines in the field, so that when the committee's work is completed and its recommendations are published, it will be possible to implement them for the benefit of patients in Israel within a short period of time. "
"The state is giving up on me"
"I have not been working since I became ill, and recently the HMO claimed that I was not eligible for more biological treatments and sent me to receive only chemotherapy, which has serious side effects. I feel that the state is giving up on me," says Jenny Adi (46) from Haifa, who has metastatic breast cancer. And needs the drug "Anharto".
"About six years ago I felt a lump in my breast. I was awake so I made sure to check. The irony is that that year I turned 40, and according to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health it is the age that should be medically monitored," Jenny recalls, "I went to a breast surgeon who confirmed the concern. That this is a bloc. "
Already during the tests, Jenny realized that the situation was worse than she thought.
"Unfortunately, when the results came, the doctor confirmed my suspicion - it was breast cancer."
Jenny was diagnosed at a relatively early stage, but metastases sent from the tumor were found in the lymph nodes.
Jenny was referred to the Oncology Department at Rambam Hospital.
"Before we started treatment, I underwent a test to characterize the disease," she says. "The test revealed an overexpression of a protein called 2 HER."
For Jenny, this was good news, because there are new and effective biological therapies that can be combined with chemotherapy. However, after six rounds of treatment, Jenny has exhausted the quota given by the health basket.
"I recently got into a situation where I needed a new round of treatments, but the HMO claimed that I was not entitled to further treatments, and were only willing to approve my chemotherapy," she says.
"My son asks when he will be treated"
Jamal Abu Sabih from the Bedouin community of Makhul in the south is the father of Muhammad, 5, who suffers from a rare and life-threatening disease called "Morkio", which affects all body systems.
The only solution for him is a treatment that has been submitted to the basket for six years in a row and receives the highest rating from professionals, but does not come in for purely economic reasons.
Since this is a drug for a rare disease that has only about 25 patients in Israel, the cost of treatment is NIS 1.5 million per year, and it cannot be met if the drug is not in the basket.
Every day that passes without medication is critical, so another delay in the basket committee’s decisions is fatal.
Abu Sabih commented on the difficult situation: "The nerve-wracking wait for the medicine deprives me of sleep and the eyes of my family members. Muhammad asks every day when he will receive treatment. When I learned that the basket committee's deliberations were postponed again, I did not know how to look the child in the eye."