Over the years, experts and civil society organizations, including Physicians for Human Rights and ACRI, have warned that the policy of privatization of the public health system adopted by Israeli governments over the past two decades will severely impair its ability to function. These processes led to widening health gaps, especially in the south and north of the country, and clearly affected the system's preparedness for crisis situations, as demonstrated on October 7 and in the first weeks of the war. Although the medical teams have worked and volunteered admirably and with devotion during the massacre and the difficult days that have followed ever since, this is not enough to overcome the enormous burden on the system and the difficult challenges it faces.
Together with Physicians for Human Rights and other organizations, we sent legal correspondence (Hebrew) to the Ministry of Health on February 7, 2024. We expressed concern that the necessary steps are not being taken to ensure the ability of the public health system to cope with the enormous challenges it faces, particularly from a budgetary perspective. We noted that the budget approved by the government allocates significantly less to the health system than necessary, leaving it once again in a state of making do with crumbs. In addition, cuts were made to the health budget and additional health expenses were burdened on the public, which would impair the ability to consume critical services. Moreover, we have proposed a series of steps that should be taken to strengthen the public health system. The correspondence, based on a position paper by Physicians for Human Rights, was written by Nili Alexandrovich of Physicians for Human Rights.