International Health Day is marked annually on April 7. This year, the World Health Organization seeks to bring to the forefront the importance of equality in receiving medical services and accessibility to them.
The Office of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman deals extensively in the field of health. The Social Welfare Audit Division has compiled significant audit reports on the subject, including the audit report titled (in Hebrew) The Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Hospitalized Patient. In this report, the Office of the State Comptroller examined the protection of the rights and dignity of patients in the general hospitals. The major defects found included a failure to comply with the obligation to receive informed consent to medical treatment, mistakes in the medical records of hospitalized patients and inadequate hospitalization conditions in the general hospitals.
The Office of the Ombudsman annually receives many complaints in the field of health. In 2018, the Office received 504 complaints in the field of health services, including complaints against health service funds, the Medical Institute for Road Safety, the Public Complaints Commission under the National Health Insurance Law, the Medical Cannabis Unit and others.
The following are examples of complaints handled by the Office of the Ombudsman:
Addition of Staff to the Dialysis Department of Yoseftal Hospital in Eilat
A patient in the dialysis department of Yoseftal Hospital in Eilat complained about the lack of staff in the department, which affected the service given to the patients. Following the inquiry of the Office of the Ombudsman, the Ministry of Health checked the department and found that its workload was very heavy and that there was a lack of staff. Upon the recommendation of the Ministry of Health, the hospital added minimal manpower, auxiliary staff and a nurse. The follow-up of the Office of the Ombudsman showed that the hospital was working to recruit additional staff, despite the difficulty in recruiting medical staff in Eilat.
Funding of Cannabis for Work-Injured Person
A man recognized as having been injured at work complained that the "Clalit Health Services" Health Fund was refusing to fund the cost of his medical cannabis. Medical cannabis is not included in the health services "basket", but work-injured persons are eligible for the funding of medical cannabis under an agreement between the Health Fund and its members. The investigation of the Office of the Ombudsman disclosed that a doctor of the National Insurance Institute had approved treatment by medical cannabis but that the Health Fund had refused to finance it. Only following the intervention of the Office of the Ombudsman, did the "Clalit" Health Fund agree to fund the cost of the medical cannabis for the complainant and even reimbursed him with the monies he had spent up till then.
The Health Fund reversed its decision to cancel the funding of medical treatment
A woman injured in a work accident, whose treatment at Soroka Hospital, Be'er Sheva, had for years been funded by the "Maccabi Health Services" Health Fund, complained that she had received a letter from the hospital notifying her that it would no longer honour the financial guarantees of "Maccabi"; because of this decision, she would have to pay for the treatment herself, to the sum of 6,000 NIS. In the framework of the investigation of the Office of the Ombudsman, the hospital initially claimed that the treatment had been stopped since "Maccabi" had notified it that the treatment was not included in the health services "basket" and that the financial guarantees had been given to the complainant by mistake. The investigation of the Office with "Maccabi" revealed that under the agreement of the Health Fund with its members, the former was obligated to provide work-injured persons with treatment not included in the health services "basket". Following the intervention of the Office of the Ombudsman, "Maccabi" undertook to provide a financial guarantee for the continuation of the complainant's treatment, and the Office of the Ombudsman demanded that the two sides sharpen the regulations relating to the provision of services outside the health services "basket" to work-injured persons, in order to prevent the recurrence of similar cases.