Israeli hospitals to stop treating wounded Syrians if no funding found

Medical centers say they will cease treatment for those hurt in civil war unless government reimburses them for costs

Israeli hospitals will stop treating wounded Syrians starting next week if they do not receive additional funding to cover their expenses, the Health Ministry announced on Sunday.

In a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, senior Health Ministry official Orly Weinstein wrote that despite repeated government promises, hospitals in Israel’s north have not been reimbursed for caring for Syrians injured in the civil war.

“Even though the state determined a number of times that there is no dispute on the need to compensate hospitals for this treatment, until now they have only received partial payment,” the Hebrew-language Ynet news site quoted the letter as saying.

Weinstein said that due to the lack of compensation, “Syrian patients will no longer be transferred to government hospitals, unless the patient is in life-threatening danger,” starting March 5 until “the resolution of the issue.”

She also wrote that due to the “dedicated and professional care” provided to wounded Syrians, there is a “significant strain on hospital resources, on operating rooms, manpower, equipment and medical devices.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits an IDF field hospital treating wounded Syrians, on the Golan Heights on February 18, 2014. (Kobi Gideon /GPO/FLASH90)

Doctor Masad Barhoum, who heads the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, where over 1,000 of the more than 2,000 wounded Syrians brought to Israel have been treated over the past few years, told the Knesset Finance Committee earlier this month that the hospital has received only NIS 54 million ($14.5 million) of the NIS 300 ($81 million) it was promised by the government.

During a Knesset Finance Committee meeting last week, chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) addressed the shortfall in funding at hospitals in northern Israel, saying that while “the decision to receive the wounded [Syrians] is correct and proper decision nationally,” it cannot come at the cost of residents of the north “receiving fewer medical services” at “lower quality.”

In December, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed his government to find ways to treat Syrians wounded in Aleppo, just “as we’ve done with thousands of Syrian civilians.”