New health minister, old challenges:
the emergency room in Assuta Ashdod was closed yesterday (Sunday) to receive new patients for two hours due to congestion.
In all hospitals, an average occupancy of 103% was recorded yesterday and today - 97%.
The hospitals warn: "It's still before the peak of winter, at the entrance to the emergency rooms the stretchers are waiting and it's a terrible sight."
The incoming Minister of Health Deri does not have 100 grace days in office.
Already on his first day on the job, he was exposed to one of the most difficult problems of the health system: the heavy loads in the emergency rooms and internal departments.
These are loads that are registered almost all year round but increase even more during the winter.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health approved for Assuta Ashdod Hospital not to admit new patients to the emergency room for about an hour and a half.
The decision refers to patients who arrive in ambulances and who are not in ambulances.
A lot of work awaits the new minister, Aryeh Deri and Nitzan Horowitz at the exchange ceremony at the Ministry of Health (archive), photo: L.A.M.
An official at the hospital said: "When we don't have a free place in the emergency room to admit patients, we contact the Ministry of Health and ask for a respite when the ambulances arrive.
We need this respite to evacuate patients for home hospitalization and free up hospital beds.
It is important to understand that a stay in the emergency room when there is no space in the wards can reach up to three days and this greatly affects the quality of treatment and satisfaction with it.
"Closing doors to patients in the emergency department is a catastrophe for us. Of course, resuscitations and urgent cases are received all the time. At the entrance to the ER, the stretchers are waiting and it's a terrible sight.
Children's screening and children's wards are also busy with us and this is even before the peak of winter.
Without the addition of hospital beds, we will return to this reality."
Internal battlefield
The Ministry of Health data shows that yesterday the average occupancy in the wards was 103%, while in Hadassah Ein Kerem the occupancy was 129%, in Nahariya - 116.3%, in Shaare Zedek - 106% and in Hillel Yaffe - 100%.
Prof. Arnon Afek, Deputy CEO of Sheba and Chairman of the Association of Hospital Directors: "Sundays are always busier days in hospitals.
But still compared to Sundays in the past at Sheba and from what I heard from other hospital managers, yesterday was a record in the number of referrals to the ER.
"We are over 100% occupied in our boarding schools, it was like a battlefield", Prof. Arnon Afek,
"We are talking about very large loads that have caused an increase in boarding occupancy. We are at over 100% occupancy in our boarding houses. It was like a battlefield. We contacted the Ministry of Health to find out what the unusual load situation was and we understood from them that there are loads in all the hospitals. We are talking about stretching all the infrastructure of the system It should be remembered that the health system in Israel also works routinely without reserves in hospitalization and emergency departments.
"We welcome the arrival of the appointed Minister of Health Deri and the incoming CEO Bar Siman Tov, and this is one of the significant challenges.
The health care system wants to treat everyone equally and we need the necessary resources as soon as possible to be able to treat everyone.
There is a large increase in applications to the community clinics."
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