In light of the decision made following the hearing at Assuta Ramat Hay’il Hospital in Tel Aviv, the Ministry of Health today (Tuesday) appealed to the public hospitals to allow in the immediate term an increase in the scope of activity and the reception of additional couples or individuals who need in vitro fertilization treatments or fertility preservation.
In recent years there has been a sharp increase in the number of IVF treatments in Israel. Following a number of processes and discussions at the Ministry of Health, which began even before the recent exceptional cases that occurred in the two IVF units in Assuta’s medical centers, the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Moshe Bar Siman Tov, appointed a team to examine the system for in vitro fertilization, and to formulate the necessary policy measures.
One of the committee’s recommendations was to run a program to compare market conditions between private and public providers. This plan includes strengthening the public units and making them attractive to patients, by giving the possibility to choose the attending physician without additional cost from the patient and by strengthening the various aspects of the service in which the answer is available in the unit and a satisfaction survey.
The Ministry of Health informed the hospitals today (Tuesday) that there is a significant dedicated budget, for the purpose of supporting the hospitals, which will increase activity and extend the hours of operation of the unit to the afternoon hours, and even allow additional services such as the selection of a treating doctor and that they are expected to act accordingly.
