"We are under serious damage to the psychiatric system and the collapse of geriatric hospitalization in Israel" so warn the directors of psychiatric hospitals and geriatric institutions in urgent appeals to the Minister of Health MK Yoav Ben Tzur and to the Director General of the Ministry Prof. Moshe Bar Siman Tov.
The extraordinary references were forwarded in preparation for the crucial budget discussions for 2023-2024 that will take place tomorrow in the government.
The senior officials demanded significant budget additions, and a national emergency plan for psychiatry and geriatrics for both systems that have been suffering for decades from a chronic and ongoing shortage of government budgeting and rates that disadvantage them compared to the general hospitals and health insurance funds.
Director General of the Ministry of Health, Moshe Bar Siman Tov (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
8 The directors of the government psychiatric hospitals wrote an unusual letter to the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Bar Siman Tov, on Tuesday, stating that for "tens of years, neglect of the psychiatric system has led to the flourishing of the private market at the expense of the public system, the departure of staff, mainly of psychiatric doctors, and inadequate infrastructure .
Despite repeated warnings, we have reached a situation where the treatment of patients today is inappropriate and does not meet the required medical and humanitarian standards.'
They further warned that "the human damage to the system is so severe and the abandonment of the staff so serious that we do not have the option of operating all the frameworks in the mental health centers and we have already presented to the management of the ministry several options for such an emergency plan."
At the same time, we are mapping the consequences if the emergency plan does not start immediately, when it is not about sanctions, but about adjusting the manpower to the realistic operating possibilities.'
"Budget erosion over the years"
The administrators state in their letter that in the initial inspection they conducted, "it is currently about the size of about 60 beds per hospital or, alternatively, frameworks and day treatments that will be closed." Mazor in Acre, Lev Hasharon in Pardesiya, Merhavim in Be'er Ya'akov and Nes Ziona, Abarbanal in Bat Yam, Shaar Menashe, Ma'ale Carmel and the psychiatric hospital in Be'er Sheva.
Ahead of tomorrow's budget discussions, the managers of the geriatric nursing and rehabilitation institutions contacted the Minister of Health Ben Tzur and warned that "the geriatrics industry has been suffering from budget erosion for years, alongside impossible regulatory requirements and huge price increases in every field.
In recent years, we have also witnessed the closure of nursing homes due to economic collapse, up to 80 institutions and thousands of beds have been closed in the last decade, and in the field of geriatrics, the situation is extremely difficult and serious, and there are entire new and luxurious departments that are not being opened in two leading rehabilitation geriatric nursing homes in Israel."
geriatric institution.
Collapse and fatal injury (archive), photo: David Cohen/Gini
Itzik Cohen, CEO of the Association for Geriatrics in Israel, whose members are managers of nursing and rehabilitation geriatric institutions, forwarded the request to the Minister of Health, according to which "during the Corona period, they realized the great importance of the geriatric institutions that formed a protective wall for the entire healthcare system in Israel.
But unfortunately the lessons were not learned and once again instead of taking care of strengthening the geriatric institutions the burnout continues and in the field of geriatrics unfortunately the lessons were not learned and again instead of taking care of the strengthening of the geriatric institutions the burnout continues.'
Cohen further warned that "the reality today is that the Ministry of Health's rate for a geriatric hospital bed in a general hospital is 2-3 times compared to the geriatric system.
If an adequate budget is given, we will be able to open wards, there will be growth in the geriatric industry and we will be able to provide a solution for thousands of patients in the overcrowded general hospitals with the corridors full of all the interns and the plight there which is increasing.'
"Another problem is a dramatic lack of working hands when we have no ability to pay, we are not attractive and the regulatory requirements do not match the challenges we face.
We ask the Honorable Minister to put the geriatrics branch at the top of the priorities, budget for geriatrics and set reasonable rates so that we can provide proper and adequate care to all the elderly.
We cannot ignore an important principle in the Torah of 'Honor your father and your mother', we are talking about the generation that builds our country to whom we owe a great moral and value debt."
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