I had a front-facing seat to a horrific show Tuesday night as the Knesset disbanded and sacked Israel into its fourth election in less than two years.
I was there with two hats. I am a doctor on a hospital ward, struggling with the ever – growing number of new coronavirus patients and trying to reverse a pandemic that threatens to wash us away.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz and MInister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: AP)
But I am also a member of a staff committee examining the conditions in hospitals for forced medical interns with the heavy responsibility to protect public health.
How do our politicians behave like this? They should be ashamed of their neglect while kicking and scratching about power.
The country’s health system is fighting a pandemic that will affect not only Israel’s public health but the content of its society and economy. And our leaders have chosen politics for the greater good.
The Israeli health system is a hotchpotch of associations, health guard groups and weapons system sewn together in the machinery we know today.
Treating patients with coronavirus at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv
(Photo: TPS)
These various moving parts often do not work well together, if at all, and successive governments have opted for band support to solve a problem that requires surgery.
The decision to go to elections while the coronavirus is still raiding the country is a classic example of Israeli politicians opting for short-term successes over long-needed change.
And now, when the last pandemic has exposed the very difficult state of our health care system, we are led into a choice that leaves the whole country unscathed and find a heavy price from state coffers.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Every sweep spent on political parties and campaign funding will ultimately cost people’s lives. Every shekel means one less doctor, one smaller MRI machine, one less state-funded treatment.
I understand our leaders ’reasoning, as illogical as it is. When they can’t cope with the normal situation, they run away and hope for another one when they return.
But reality can only change if we work together. Just as doctors promise not to abandon our patients, I urge our leaders to do the same.
Amitai Avnon Savitzky heads the Intervention Forum of the Israeli Medical Association