New ombudsman report warns Israeli health system not ready for epidemic

The State Comptroller’s Office issues a report warning Israel’s health system is not prepared to deal with an epidemic.

The report, written before the outbreak of the coronavirus, says the government did not draw up sufficient plans to deal with an epidemic or stockpile a sufficient amount of medicine and ventilators, among other shortcomings.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was health minister during part of the period covered in the report, acknowledges “there is room for improvement” but says the report is not applicable to the coronavirus.

“There is no country in the world that could forecast or prepare for the spread of the virus,” he says in a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. “No health system in the world, even the best one, was prepared to deal with the epidemic.”