Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustration
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader
- Introduction
- 1 The Doctors' Revolt at Beilinson Hospital
- 2 From Beilinson to Tel Hashomer
- 3 Towards a State Health System
- 4 Health and Politics during the Great Mass Immigration
- 5 Kupat Holim and Mass Immigration
- 6 The Political Struggle to Establish a Central Hospital for the Negev
- Conclusion
- Appendix The Law of Return
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustration
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader
- Introduction
- 1 The Doctors' Revolt at Beilinson Hospital
- 2 From Beilinson to Tel Hashomer
- 3 Towards a State Health System
- 4 Health and Politics during the Great Mass Immigration
- 5 Kupat Holim and Mass Immigration
- 6 The Political Struggle to Establish a Central Hospital for the Negev
- Conclusion
- Appendix The Law of Return
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Health services in Israel are a mosaic of contrasts in organization and operation. At the outset of the 1970s, Chaim Shlomo Halevi, who served as deputy director-general of the Ministry of Health in the early years of statehood, described the upside and the downside of health services in Israel at the time, saying,
Health services in Israel create a diversified and multicolored picture in their organizational structure and their functional content … Institutes under different ownership operate parallel to one another in the same communities and the same medical branches, without coordination, and at times in conflict with one another, and all this in the absence of an agent with the legal authority capable of coordinating their operations, directing them to sectors in need and preventing redundancy. Controversy surrounding the pluralism in organization of health services has gone on since establishment of the State [of Israel], and it serves as one of the primary barriers on the path to achieving general compulsory heath insurance.”
Halevi's description of the Israeli health care system written some thirty years ago still holds true today. The pluralism of the Israeli health care system is a source of strength, but also one of its primary weaknesses. On the one hand, this pluralism meant the obstruction of health insurance legislation until 1994; on the other hand, it has made possible free competition and the independent development of a host of health institutions available to the public.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Health and ZionismThe Israeli Health Care System, 1948–1960, pp. xi - xviPublisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008