This year, the committee was given an additional one-time budget, in the amount of NIS 50 million.
Drug Basket Committee
Photography:
GPO
The discussions of the Medicines Basket Committee are expected to end tonight (Tuesday), and at the end of them it will be decided which new medicines and technologies will be given to the patients.
The committee ends its deliberations this year with a delay of about a month and a half, partly due to the corona that prevented gatherings.
The committee members held 13 discussions on 880 drugs and technologies at a cost of more than NIS 3 billion, of which yesterday they compiled a list of 185 treatments that were defined as extremely important.
They cost NIS 2 billion, of which only a few dozen treatments will cost NIS 500 million in the medicine basket.
This year, the committee will have an additional one-time budget of NIS 50 million.
The members of the basket committee are discussing this year a unique model of changing the nature of treatment for diabetes and epilepsy.
If the move is approved, patients with these diseases will be able to receive advanced medications for their disease as early as the first treatment, and the range of treatments for the diseases will increase.
Among the drugs that came up for the final discussions - drugs for chronic diseases and cancer, including Linferza and Jola for patients with ovarian cancer and drugs for patients with bladder cancer.
The committee discusses drugs for heart disease.
Treatments for schizophrenia patients and treatment for generalized anxiety disorder will also be discussed.
For the final discussion, drugs for ADHD came up - Ritalin treatment for adults in the first line and the drugs Vivans and Atomic for children who did not respond to other treatments.
The basket committee also discusses the pill the day after, Fostinor, for the treatment of victims of sexual assault or for the prevention of emergency pregnancies in young women aged 20 and under.
Representatives from one of the nine associations came to protest outside the basket committee's discussion, asking to allow 49-45 girls to have a mammogram - a test for early detection of breast cancer, once every two years.
