The public committee to expand the drug basket will convene for its first meeting tomorrow (Sunday), and patients are already waiting:
17 committee members will discuss in the next two months more than 650 drugs and 65 technologies.
Until next January, the representatives of the basket committee will also decide on dozens of new drugs that will enter the basket and be given to patients free of charge.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz managed to increase the budget for the addition alone to the basket to NIS 550 million for 2022.
It should be noted that this is the amount of the supplement only and not the entire budget of the committee.
This is the highest addition allocated to new drugs in the health basket in recent years.
In the years 2018-2017, the increase amounted to NIS 460 million, while in the years 2020 and 2021 it increased to NIS 500 million.
Submission of basket recommendations, last year // Photo: GPO
The list to be discussed by members includes many medications for cancer patients of various types, as well as treatments for schizophrenia and ketamine spray for the treatment of resistant depression.
More on targeting: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in children and even a corona vaccine has been submitted for approval through the drug basket.
Still - without an oncologist
Among the technologies to be discussed this year in the basket committee: genetic testing for Jews of Bukhari descent;
Genetic testing that predicts risk of breast cancer recurrence;
Neurotransmitter for the treatment of depression resistant to drugs and genetic tests that replace amniocentesis.
Other technologies on the agenda are fertility preservation for women with endometriosis or low ovarian reserve;
Technologies in which genetic diagnosis before return are passed on to a third child or older and even accessories and voice matching treatment for transgender people.
The committee is headed by Prof. Jonathan Halevi, former director of Shaare Zedek Hospital and who has held this important position in the past.
The public representative on the committee, former MK Revital Swede, surprisingly announced her retirement last weekend. Public representatives who will serve on the committee this year are former MK Haim Oron, Prof. Neta Ziv from Tel Aviv University, former MK Rabbi Chaim Amsalem and Iris Ginzburg Health economist.
Despite requests from cancer patients, there is not a single oncology specialist among the committee members.
In "Israel Today" we revealed this month that last year only 14% of the budget for new drugs was intended for cancer patients, compared with an average of 42% in previous years.
Therefore, the cancer patients turned to Minister Horowitz on the subject but returned empty-handed.
"I was very lucky"
Among these patients is Orit Rindner (57) from Netanya.
She needs a drug called "libtio," and frequent hospitalizations erode her power.
"I suffer from a genetic disease called 'gorlin', which causes skin cancer of the basal cells. I have already had more than 100 surgeries to remove the cancerous lesions. The side effects of the drugs available today are not simple and I am unable to live this way," she laments.
Orit Rindner, Photo: Courtesy of the person photographed
According to her, "this year Libbitio was submitted to the committee, with the treatment proving highly effective in cases of skin cancer. I call on the basket committee, I and many other patients desperately need this treatment. We can not continue to be hospitalized often."
"Want to be like everyone else"
Jana Finkelstein, 37, from Rishon Lezion, is the mother of three-year-old Bell, who suffers from a rare syndrome called Algiel.
This affects various organs in the body and especially the liver.
"I am all alert and full of expectation from the members of the basket committee. Bell is only 3 years old and has gone through a lot. The syndrome she suffers from is very severe and causes itching to bleed," Finkelstein describes the complex situation.
Belle Finkelstein, Photo: From the family album
She already knows that "the solution for children in her condition is a liver transplant, but that's what we do not want to get to. Now, there is a new drug called Liebermali that can prevent the need for a liver transplant, stop Bell's itching and allow her to live like the other children." .
Finkelstein, like Rindner, also takes advantage of the stage of "Israel Today" to appeal to the members of the basket committee.
"I want them to help me and the other families and include the only medicine that can save Bell's life," Finkelstein says.
Merav Shoval, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is currently recovering, is fighting to lower the age of mammography from 50 to 40, along with one in nine.
Merav Shoval, Photo: Courtesy of the person photographed
"What does Awareness Month help us if when young women come to make an appointment with doctors, they text them?" Shoval wonders based on her past experience.
"I was very lucky that my doctor did not do that. 25% of the patients are under the age of 50, and we are sure there are more and they just do not know it, because they are not told or approved to be tested.
"One of the goals of one in nine is to lower the age of mammography to 40 and also to make a general understanding that breast cancer is not a matter of age and that early detection is definitely life-saving," says Shoval.
Eats from a feeding tube
Bassem Razi, 43, from Jerusalem, also expects good news from the basket committee for his 12-year-old daughter Ryan.
Ryan suffers daily from a rare syndrome called Ahlers denlos, which has forced her to have part of her colon cut off.
"The size of a normal bowel is eight meters, and the interviewer today has only 7 cm.
That's why she can not drink, eat or receive medication, and is required to be connected to a feeding tube for the whole day, "her father explains apprehensively.
Ryan Razi, Photo: From the family album
"The big danger in the feeding tube," says Bassem Sr., "is the exposure to infections that cause serious complications while actually endangering life. The drug Gatex is the only drug that offers us a solution to hang on the feeding tube, The drug will help us and the other families who need it. "