A new report by the Ministry of Health, first revealed today (Wednesday) in "Israel Today", shows that the health funds remain in excess of NIS 50 million each year from the health basket budget. According to estimates by senior health officials, these surpluses add up Billions of shekels that disappear in the funds' account and are not used for the benefit of the patients.
The report of the Ministry of Health examined the budgeting of the drug basket from 1995 to 2009. The data showed that in just three years (2009-2007), the budgeting of cancer drugs led to a surplus of NIS 715 million in the funds, the drugs for psychiatric diseases will be budgeted in excess of 200 million NIS, the painkillers will be budgeted in excess of NIS 100 million and the drugs for gastrointestinal diseases will be budgeted in excess of NIS 96 million.
The Health Basket Committee at its first meeting, about a month ago, Photo: Gideon Markovich
It should be noted that the Ministry of Health prepares and publishes the report with extreme delay, unexplained and particularly outrageous: in 2011 the Ministry of Health published only one such report on the year 2006 while now, in 2022, the report is on the years 2009- 2007, ie between 13 and 15 years late. The authors of the new report in the Ministry of Health claimed that "control is currently being carried out for the years 2010-2020."
These findings reinforce the findings of the investigation published in December 2017 in "Israel Today" according to which the Ministry of Health does not carry out regular and systematic annual control over the transfer of budgets for the new drugs budgeted to patients who need them.
The investigation also revealed that according to senior estimates in the health system, the total annual budget of the new drugs - about five billion shekels - which is transferred to the four Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet and Leumit health funds, creates a cumulative surplus of between 1.5 and 2 billion shekels.
This surplus, if regularly and annually monitored by the Ministry of Health, could dramatically increase the budget for new drugs in the basket or at least be enough to fund some of the expensive and essential drugs that remain out of the basket every year and are fought for by hundreds of patients.
Diabetics demonstrate in front of Maccabi HMO demanding funding for "artificial pancreas" last July, Photo: Coco
Meanwhile, this morning a new and unprecedented demand was transferred to the Ministry of Health to immediately transfer the NIS 150 million budget surplus that is in the Ministry of Health's new review for budgeting the drug basket for 2022, ahead of the final discussions of the basket committee scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday.
The demand was forwarded to the Minister of Health, Nitzan Horowitz, to the Chairman of the Drug Basket Committee, Prof. Yonatan Halevi, and to the Coordinator of the Basket Committee and the Head of Technology at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Osnat Luxenburg. The demand was passed by the "NIS 5 billion" forum established in 2019 by 70 organizations of patients' associations, doctors and nurses, demanding a massive and permanent increase in the budgeting of the public health system. The letter is signed by Dr. Zeev Feldman, Chairman of the State Physicians Association, Shmulik Ben Yaakov, Chairman of the Association for the Rights of the Patient, Uri Fleischman, CEO of the Brothers and Sisters Federation, Pnina Rosenzweig, CEO of Ne'eman and Ilan Gazit, R. of the immigrant camps.
The forum leaders wrote that "the drug basket committee is expected to publish its recommendations early next week, and decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of patients and citizens in the State of Israel, and we already know that the committee has completed the rating of the most essential drugs and technologies it believes should be included." Significantly on the budget that the government has allocated to the committee. "
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz.
Demand for the transfer of the budget surplus in favor of the medicine basket, Photo: Coco
"Therefore, the decision in next week's deliberations will focus on which essential drugs will not be on the basket this year, or in other words - which patient groups will be denied access to new drugs - whether they are cancer patients, patients with serious or rare diseases, diabetics, heart patients and more. "These decisions have very significant consequences for the patient public and may even cost the lives of hundreds of patients, who need life-saving, life-prolonging and suffering-preventing technologies," they said.
The forum leaders added that "just before the basket was decided, an opportunity was created to bring healing to hundreds and possibly thousands of patients and citizens in the State of Israel who need essential medicines and to expand the basket from NIS 550 million to NIS 700 million." "You have an immediate emergency hearing on the transfer of this budget in the amount of NIS 148 million to the lady of the committee to update the basket of health services and allow the inclusion of additional essential medicines for thousands of other Israeli citizens."
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