Fateful days for patients:
The members of the drug basket committee will begin this morning with final discussions, to formulate a list of drugs that will enter the basket this year and be given to patients with public funding.
By Wednesday, a list of dozens of drugs is expected to be submitted to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz.
The budget of the drug basket committee this year is NIS 550 million.
Over the past three months, the committee members have discussed about 850 drugs and technologies, of which so far they have compiled a list of about 150 most important and essential drugs, at a cost of about two billion shekels, from which they will eventually choose less than half.
In an attempt to maximize the budget available to them, the Ministry of Health is exploring options such as introducing drugs at no extra cost (instead of other drugs already in the basket), or hedging agreements with the companies - agreements in which the company bears some of the costs.
The committee made 16 such agreements this year.
Ruthi Lapidot,
Among the medications and treatments that will not reach the final discussion are treatments for patients suffering from retinal degeneration or retinal damage;
Image translation device for sound for the blind (Orcam);
The drug "Kitroda" for gastrointestinal cancer (costing about NIS 65 million) and more.
The focus of the year will be treatments for cancer patients, to whom, as we published last year, a budget was devoted, and treatments for psychiatric patients.
This year, a psychiatrist was first appointed as a member of the Drug Basket Committee.
Ruthi Lapidot (63) from Givat Ada has been dealing with metastatic breast cancer since 2005.
"After a decade free of cancer, the disease is back," she says.
'' I was told that the cancer had metastasized to the liver.
Since then I have been on aggressive chemotherapy, but the effectiveness of the treatments is declining, and so are the treatment options.
"The cancer I suffer from is HER2, and the drug I need, 'Anharto', is not in the basket, although it has shown exceptional efficacy for women in my condition."
T. (48), married and a mother of two from the north of the country, was diagnosed about a year ago with multiple myeloma and needs the drug "Drelex" - one of the three drugs that received the highest importance rating: "There can be no situation where I do not have money or private insurance. The most innovative treatment for the disease. "
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