The healthcare system in Israel is nowhere near as advanced as medical research in Israel. Unfortunately, the often groundbreaking results of medical research at Israeli universities are mostly implemented abroad. Above all in the USA.
Research that is financed with Israeli tax money. China is the cheap workbench for all kinds of products, and Israel is the cheap workbench for all kinds of innovations. The elites of China and Israel profit, paid for by the citizens, who cannot enjoy the advantages and results.
That is how a socialist market economy works. During a hearing in the Knesset, we learned that around 88,8% of strokes are treated too late and not adequately.
The facts are devasting. The next failure of the full right-wing government: War of surrender, highest costs of living, no justicial reform, 100.000 dislocated from the North, 2.000 Muslim murerderes aka terroists released on Israel’s streets and rule of the unelected elites of the deep state.
The hospitals are sharply criticizing the Ministry of Health for managing the transfers. Health Committee Chairman MK Yoni Mashriqi (Shas): “The Ministry of Health must update the procedures, adapt them to those accepted worldwide, and create a practical and efficient mechanism for managing patient transfers.”
Outdated procedures, a shortage of neurologists, and late arrival for catheterization are some of the data on the state of treatment in Israel for stroke cases were discussed today (Wednesday) in the Health Committee of the Knesset.
The chairman of the committee, MK Yoni Mashriki (Shas), called on the Ministry of Health to update the procedures and adapt them to international standards, in addition to providing the committee with a breakdown of hospital transfers by hospital and the time of arrival at the hospital from a catheter, as well as data on the number of patients who were not catheterized due to failure to arrive on time.
The ministry was also required to urgently convene a roundtable with the Israeli Stroke Society and the directors of stroke units in Israel, in cooperation with rescue organizations in Israel, to create a practical and effective mechanism for managing the transfers of patients or the transfer of catheters between hospitals.
In a report from 2022, 16,349 stroke cases were reported, but the estimate is that an additional 2,700 unreported cases are given. In the periphery, residents do not receive a quick response due to the lack of infrastructure, low availability of skilled teams, and difficulties in accessing hospitals.
That means it has been a problem virulent since the left-wing government and even before. One must state that the governments, be it right or left, do not care much about the citizens measured on base of real action and measurement. The governments and MKs are world-class buffons, but delivery. No.
Stroke has heavy economic costs for the country, and therefore urgent action must be taken to raise awareness of stroke prevention, especially among at-risk populations and in the periphery.
The report also shows that only 11.2% of patients received intravenous “TPA therapy” to prevent blood clots, a rate much lower than international standards and the recommendation of the Israeli Stroke Society.
This gap is evident in the periphery, where arrival times to hospitals are longer, and accessibility to advanced stroke centres is limited. In the centre of the country, there is higher availability of specialized departments, but in the periphery, many patients are hospitalized in internal departments, which are not adapted to stroke treatment, which increases the risk of infections and mortality.
According to them, the goal set by the European Stroke Organization is to hospitalize 90% of stroke patients in a designated department, but in Israel, the rate is less than 50%, and in the periphery, the figure is even lower.
According to Prof. Ronen Leker, chairman of the Israeli Stroke Society, “Up to 15% of stroke patients are suitable for catheterization, and in 11 catheterization units in the country, 1,352 people underwent brain catheterization in 2022. The problem is that transfers between hospitals are poorly managed. (…) Precious time is wasted until you find somewhere to transfer. Then it takes even more precious time until an ambulance arrives.”
Leker called on the Ministry of Health to promote an action plan for training catheterizers. Catheter training is done abroad, takes 3 years, and the ministry allocates only 200,000 NIS.
According to Leker, for 85% of stroke patients, the Ministry of Health must stop the policy that after 4.5 hours, compensation stops to hospitals for providing intravenous infusion treatment to dissolve blood clots in the brain with TPA.
The decision on how to compensate hospitals was made in the early 2000s, but since then there have been major developments. All over the world, stroke associations (European, American, Australian and here in Israel), understand that it is possible to treat with TPA in a longer time window, up to 24 hours from the event, but the Ministry has not changed its decision since 2000. Brilliant.
This creates an unimaginable distortion. Some said in the hearing that they are afraid that the day will come when the hospital will stop treating patients, for whom they do not receive money. Today, TPA can be provided beyond 4.5 hours, but hospitals do not receive compensation for such life-saving treatments.
Even if a patient is lying in an orthopaedic ward and has a stroke during his hospitalization, we are not compensated. There have been negotiations with the Ministry of Health for a long time, but nothing is happening.
Dr. Rani Barnea, director of the Stroke Prevention Center in Beilinson, secretary of the Israeli Association of Neurology and member of the board of the Israeli Stroke Society said that
“(…) about 1,000 people a year could be catheterized, but are not catheterized. The problem is that the state is unable to transfer patients from hospital to hospital. It is unlikely that a state that succeeds in blowing up terrorists’ pagers in Lebanon will fail to transfer a 90-year-old grandmother with a stroke from the hospital in Ashdod to another hospital. An inpatient emergency room needs to be established. In addition, there is no treatment for stroke – without neurology, and in Israel today there are only 350 active neurologists, a third of whom are over retirement age. We are in the greatest manpower shortage in Europe.” (Dr. Rani Barnea)
Dr Salo Heretz, director of the neurology department at Assuta Ashdod, emphasized that the distance and time to obtain catheterization at other medical centres, which is not available at the local hospital, will leave patients severely disabled. According to him, the Ministry of Health cannot and should not regulate transfers to other medical centres.
According to Eli Lankari, mayor of Eilat, the problem is not only for the city’s residents but also for the approximately 3 million tourists who vacation there each year, and are forced to wait for a helicopter to receive proper evacuation.
According to the National Center for Disease Control, the average age at the time of the stroke was 71.9 years. 18% of patients were under 60 and about 30% were 80 years old and older. The most common underlying diseases among people with an acute stroke were hypertension (56.6%), hyperlipidemia (43.8%), diabetes (34.4%), and heart disease (18.7%). In addition, atrial fibrillation was common in those 80 and older (25.3%).
VonNaftali: Israel needs a better state and bureaucracy. However, the elites of the deep state block the base of any effective reform. Hence, Israel needs a justicial reform and better and courageous elites in government and Knesset. Trump and Milei show the way.
Based on the press release of the Knesset (29.01.2025). Selected as relevant/lectored/translated/regrouped by VonNaftali. Pic AI-generated. Illustrative.