Most doctors in Israel received degrees abroad - and the Ministry of Health will not recognize most of them - voila! news

In the video: Bar Siman Tov has returned to the position of Director General of the Ministry of Health (Walla sketch!)

Israel is facing a serious medical crisis. That's according to an OECD report published Wednesday. According to the report, a distinctive feature of Israel is that most doctors received their first medical degree abroad, and the report shows that almost half of all doctors who have undergone foreign training are Israeli students who obtained their first medical degree abroad before returning to Israel.

Ministry of Health Director General Moshe Bar Siman Tov (Photo: Flash 90, Jonathan Zindel)

However, it should be mentioned that already in 2019, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, then Director General of the Ministry of Health, who returned for a second term in office after the establishment of the current government, established a committee in which it was decided that starting in 2025, the Ministry of Health would stop recognizing a bachelor's degree in medicine for Israeli students who studied in countries that do not belong to the OECD. The leading countries in which Israeli students study medicine are Romania, Moldova and Ukraine – countries that do not belong to the OECD, so if the move is implemented, their studies will not be recognized in Israel.

More in Walla!

The Complete Guide: Everything You Need to Know Before and After Catheterization

In collaboration with Shahal

Fear of worsening medical conditions in Israel (Photo: Flash 90, Avshalom Shouni)

The report also found that half of Israel's physicians have passed the age of 55 and are expected to retire within the next decade. In addition, the number of medical graduates in Israel has increased over the past decade, but remains the lowest relative to the size of the population of all OECD countries. Although the number of medical students has increased over the past two decades, it is still low relative to the growth of the Israeli population.

The report criticizes the fact that the training process in Israel is not based on long-term planning and does not take into account the future needs and requirements of the health system. According to the report, Israeli governments have established no fewer than 10 committees in 20 years in recent years to find a solution to the shortage of doctors, but the report's authors note that crisis management must be stopped and permanent and long-term medical personnel planning must be maintained.

They, too, have yet to find a solution. The interns' protest (Photo: official website, Elad Gutman)

The report also shows that the average number of physicians in Israel is 3.3 physicians per 1,000 people, while the OECD average is 3.7 physicians per 1,000 people.

In Israel, there is both massive population growth on the one hand and an aging population on the other. The authors of the report note that this will require an increase in the number of physicians per population to respond to growing care needs, unless other health system actors play a more significant role in the delivery of health services.

• news
• News in Israel
• health

Tags

• Ministry of Health
• Doctors
• oecd
• Moshe Bar Siman Tov
• medicine