by Israel’s health funds (kupot holim) are unable to provide some services in person to cities on the geographic periphery, Israeli State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said in a report released Tuesday.
In Eilat, for example, the funds offer services in only 25 medical specialties, and only four of them (OBGYN, pediatrics, family medicine and optometry) are offered in all funds, the report said. This in a city with more than 57,000 inhabitants.
Of the 32 medical specialties available to Safed residents, 11 are not offered to policyholders by Clalit, which insures about 17,100 people, the report said.
Moreover, in the geographical periphery, in many specialties, there is only one doctor available who works in that area, according to the report. This means that residents have no choice of doctor and cannot change doctors.
This not only prevents competition, but also harms the level of service residents receive, the report said.
The periphery is also likely to be hit harder by the Health Ministry’s reform, which will see the country derecognize a number of medical schools outside Israel, where some Israelis pursue medical training.
While 34% of those licensed will graduate from these schools in 2022, this number is 51% in the Southern Region and 63% in the Northern Region.
Doctors who have studied in Israeli institutions are mainly concentrated in Jerusalem, the center of the country, and Haifa.
Doctors per capita
The report also assessed the number of physicians per capita in Israel, noting that forecasts show that Israel will continue to have fewer physicians per capita than the OECD average. While the OECD average of doctors per capita remained stable at 3.5 doctors per 1,000 people between 2020 and 2035, forecasts for Israel showed 3.16 doctors per 1,000 people in 2019, and 3.02 in 2035.
In addition, after Italy, Israel has the highest percentage of doctors aged 55 and over in the OECD, with 48% of Israeli doctors aged over 55 in 2020, compared to the OECD average of 33% that year.
Although the Ministry of Health has plans to increase the number of doctors in the long term, the report notes that the ministry’s work in this area in the short and medium term is not yet complete and that there is no complete plan with targets and measures exist. of success, the report said.
The comptroller also criticized the Ministry of Health’s data on the number of doctors in the country, saying the ministry does not have accurate information on how many doctors there are.“Different ministry publications are based on different statistics and present different numbers of doctors,” the report said.
