Health basket committee for 2012 appointed

Deputy Health Minister MK Ya’acov Litzmansays the members are professionals and among the leaders in their fields.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Medicine pills drugs prescription 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Medicine pills drugs prescription 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
The new public committee to recommend the expansion of the basket of health services for 2012 has been appointed by the health and finance ministers and asked to present their list of priorities by the end of December for a total of NIS 300 million worth of medications and other medical technologies.
Deputy Health Minister MK Ya’acov Litzman, who is in actual control of the ministry rather than Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is the formal health minister, said the members are professionals and among the leaders in their fields.
“I am sure that they will succeed at this very important task within the allotted time period, for the benefit of Israelis,” he said.
The chairman of the voluntary body is again Rambam Medical Center director-general Prof. Rafael Beyar. Coordinator of the committee will be the veteran head of the ministry’s medical technologies and infrastructure director, Dr. Osnat Luxenburg.
Other committee members are Dr. Zev Ahronson, Kupat Holim Meuhedet director- general; Prof. Ya’acov Neparstek, head of the internal medicine branch of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem; Prof. Haim Bitterman, medical director of Clalit Health Services; lawyer Noam Heuslich, chief legal adviser of the veteran pension funds; Prof.
Jacob Giris, head of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s internal medicine F department; Prof. Dan Tzivoni, chief of cardiology at Shaare Zedek Medical Center; Eyal Gabbai, former director of the Prime Minister’s Office; Prof. Drorith Hochner, head of obstetrics/gynecology at Hadassah University Medical Center on Mount Scopus; Prof. Daniel Vardi, deputy director-general of Kupat Holim Leumit; Yair Zilberstein, health liaison of the Treasury; Rabbi Avraham Menala, deputy chairman of the Tel Aviv Religious Council; Dr. Yoel Lipschitz, Health Ministry deputy director-general; Boaz Sofer, director of the Tikshuv company; Prof. Noam Zohar, head of Bar-Ilan University’s philosophy department; Prof.
Avi Porath, head of the health division of Maccabi Health Services; and Etti Semama, Health Ministry ombudswoman.
Patient organizations have complained that they have no representation this year.
The committee will have to choose among 600 applications by companies that make or import medical technologies that they want to be provided by the health funds to suitable patients at Treasury expense.