The good news is that 112 public hospital beds were added to the public health
system in 2011. The bad news is that the per-capita rate has declined, and
Israel still trails far behind the per capita average of the other OECD
countries.
“This was the first year that the number of beds actually
increased,” Prof.
Arnon Afek, the new head of the Health Ministry’s
Medical Authority, said. The figures do not refer to actual patient beds in the
wards or even those paid for by the ministry, but to budgeted, approved beds in
the public hospitals, which may be owned by the government, the health funds or
voluntary organizations.
The rate of general hospital beds per 1,000
Israeli residents has dropped however to 1.88, compared to 2.09 at the end of
2005.
A ministry report on hospitalization, prepared by its information
department and released for publication on Tuesday, also showed that the number
of psychiatric hospital beds continued to decline to 0.44 per 1,000 residents,
compared to 0.75 in 2005. But this is not considered a negative sign, as
psychiatric patients have increasingly been living in the community, at home or
in hostels, receiving medications and psychotherapy, rather than living out
their lives at inpatient mental health centers.
The rate of geriatric
beds is also declining, which is not a positive sign, while beds at
rehabilitation institutions remained stable, but did not increase – which is
also problematic, given the aging population.
“Yet the ministry has
increased the number of intensive care beds for children by 11 and infants by
34,” Afek said. “This is a trend in the health system.”
The
shortage of intensive care beds is a problem throughout the year and especially
in the winter, when elderly people with chronic illnesses suffer life-threatening
flu complications.
Afek said that the addition of beds are the result of
the efforts of ministry director- general Prof. Ronni Gamzu and Deputy Health
Minister Ya’acov Litzman, and while this is too little and too late, it is a
step in the right direction and an improvement.
He conceded that some
hospitals have actually closed units and reduced departments because they did
not have enough medical specialists, nurses and other professionals to run
them.
“But there is an increase of medical students, with 700 new ones
around the country, and more nurses due to scholarships, career changes from
academics to specially trained nurses and more nursing schools. It takes time,”
Afek said.
The report also found that operating theater beds increased in
2011 by one, dialysis patient beds by 12, delivery room beds by 17 and recovery
room beds by 18 (since 2009), while the number of budgeted places for newborns
declined by six. There are 62 more beds for rehabilitating alcoholics, compared
to 2007, for a total of 916.