During the last month the Knesset State Control Committee discussed a series of topics that had been reflected in the reports published by the State Comptroller in recent years.
Consequently, the report concerning the medical services provided for IDF disabled veterans in May 2019, and the follow-up audit published in March 2022, were brought before the Committee (26.2.2024) following the increase in the number of combat soldiers suffering physical and psychological injuries since the outbreak of the Swords of Iron War. Since 7.10 the Rehabilitation Division at the Ministry of Defense has assumed responsibility for handling approximately 5,000 new disabled persons.
Eitan Dahan, the Director of the Defense Forces Audit Division, related to the follow-up audit of the Disabled Rehabilitation Division: "The report touched upon the shortage of district physicians and its implications, the supervision and control of the standard of medical services provided for the IDF disabled veterans by external parties, the people escorting the IDF disabled veterans and the transfer of medical information from the HMOs to the Rehabilitation Division – a legal and technological issue. During 2020, the Rehabilitation Division provided medical services to 57,000 IDF disabled veterans in a scope of about one billion shekels. The cost of the people escorting the disabled for this year reached about a further half a billion shekels."
Dahan mentioned the huge overload the district physicians are subject to: In practice, every district physician is responsible for the treatment of approximately 3,700 IDF disabled veterans, while there are approximately 1,500 insured persons who are registered with family physicians in the HMOs. "The change made in this matter is specific and insufficient. The process of signing a collective agreement agreed upon with the Ministry of Finance has not yet been completed. As we see it, this is very important", said Dahan.
Another discussion held by the Committee (28.2.2024) dealt with the topic of the regulation of nursing care insurances, which was written about in great detail in the State Comptroller's report dated October 2017. The Committee focused on the challenges arising from the rapid ageing of the population in Israel, which is expected to lead to a considerable surge in the number of people needing assistance from the insurance companies and the National Insurance in the coming years.
Tzachi Saad, the Director of the National Economic and Infrastructure Audit Division, told the Knesset Members that "The report indicated a crisis in the field of collective nursing care insurances. The parties responsible for the many years of failure are the insurance commissioners in particular years, who allowed the continued marketing of the insurances, the collective policy holders and the policy advisors who assisted in marketing them. And also, the insurance companies that could have acted significantly to prevent the crisis."
"Subsequently to the publication of the report, the Insurance Commissioner at that time decided to stop the regulation of the insurances in this format. Therefore, this matter is less relevant today, and we are mostly left with the private insurances, as well as the HMOs' nursing care insurances, a matter which is presently on the agenda."
In a discussion held on the topic of the regulation of the clinical training of physicians between the healthcare system and the academia (5.3.2024), the Director of the Social and Welfare Audit Division, Liora Shimoni, said that the Comptroller is due to publish a follow-pp audit to the report that was published in May 2018: "We have found that some of the defects have been rectified while some have not. We have already received the response from the audited bodies to the audit we conducted this year. We see that the Ministry of Health has related to it very seriously and has performed many acts that I assume we shall hear about here. Nevertheless, this is a system that is still unable to say that the interface between the academic system that trains the physicians, and the medical system that operates them, is regulated to the hilt. This is not only a matter of the addition of resources, which is required – but also the method by which the processes are regulated". Shimoni called to examine "how to utilize all the potential so that all the students receive the appropriate training."
The Deputy Director of Department M in the Division, Roni Gavrieli, presented the defects that arose in the report, including the method of managing the internship array and the need to increase the number of specialist physicians in Israel. Gavrieli mentioned that the Comptroller had recommended, at the time, determining a multi-year plan that would regulate these matters.
The immigration to Israel of the Jews remaining in Ethiopia was on the agenda in a joint discussion of the State Control Committee and the Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs (18.3.2024). During the discussion it transpired that 1,226 Jews had been found suitable for immigration according to the criteria prescribed in the government decision. These are people who are waiting, who were supposed to have immigrated within the framework of "Operation Tsur Israel" (Government Decision 713), within the framework of which 3,000 new immigrants have already arrived in Israel.
Benny Goldman, Director of Department O in the Social and Welfare Audit Division, surveyed the main points of the opinion published by the State Comptroller in September 2008 concerning the implementation of the government decisions regarding the immigration of the Falash Mura: "Generations of state comptrollers have been accompanying the topic of the immigration of Ethiopian Jews and their absorption over the years. The then Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss Z"L, visited the camps in Ethiopia and noted in the opinion that the number of the Falash Mura living there is not definite. The compounds where the Falash Mura were waiting were becoming full again and again. We understand that government decisions have been passed and this matter is still on the agenda."
The Knesset Members also discussed (20.3.2024) the State Comptroller's report on the topic of the IDF service of the ultra-Orthodox from May 2012, about one month after the previous discussion in the matter. "We have conducted an audit report on the questions of the implementation of the Shachar program for the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox. We have seen that the overall scope of the recruits was low, and the Shachar program was underactive. Some of the defects have been rectified and some have still not", said Eitan Dahan.
