Health institutions to be required to have accessibility for physically disabled

Setting down the regulations has taken a long time.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Updated: MARCH 10, 2016 02:57
Young woman in a wheelchair with leg in plaster (illustrative). (photo credit: INGIMAGE)
Young woman in a wheelchair with leg in plaster (illustrative).
(photo credit: INGIMAGE)
All hospitals, health fund clinics, scanning centers, child development centers and other medical institutions across the country will have to become accessible to the physically disabled in the coming years, according to new regulations approved by the Knesset on Tuesday.
The decision is an additional phase in the process of implementing improvements in accessibility, according to Meretz MK Ilan Gilon, who heads a subcommittee that is advancing legislation in the field.
After the regulations go into effect soon, the institutions will have to prepare an accessibility program, and the health minister will set down rules for gradual implementation over the next few years.
Ahiya Kamara, the commissioner responsible for the rights of disabled individuals in the Justice Ministry, said that medical institutions are meant to serve the broader public, including people with disabilities “who deserve suitable, equitable and worthy services.”
“Setting down the regulations has taken a long time, and on the eve of the last elections we were sure that they would create a different reality for the disabled, but unfortunately, this did not occur,” he said. “The commission has the power to enforce the regulations and demand that they be carried out.”
The physically disabled require medical treatment more frequently than those who are not limited.