ACRI, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel and Equality in Health applaud the Health Ministry’s recent decision to give priority to hospitals in the north and south of Israel in the acquisition of new MRI machines.
In a June 2008 meeting of the Knesset’s Labor and Welfare Committee, the Health Ministry announced its intentions to allocate five new MRI machines to hospitals in Israel. The three organizations demanded that hospitals in the periphery, where health services are lacking and often not accessible, be given priority on this issue. In January 2009, the ministry presented the parliamentary committee with a tender according to which “priority will be given to a bidder from a hospital in the northern or southern district… which does not already have one MRI machine”.
ACRI and its partners view the new tender as an important step toward reducing gaps in access to health care between the center and periphery of the country. According to the tender, the ministry will examine bids that include “the improvement of availability and accessibility of the service to the public…according to the criteria of geographic distance from another institution possessing such a machine, and the number of machines in that district…”
