Shas head and former health minister MK Arye Deri's "personal involvement" was key in what the Health Ministry called significant achievements made in the negotiations for Israel's new state budget for 2023-2024, the ministry's director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov said on Friday.
In a Health Ministry statement released shortly after the budget passed a government vote, Siman Tov lauded Deri, who served as health minister less than a month before he was fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to a High Court of Justice ruling blocking the Shas chief from serving as minister due to his 2021 plea bargain.
"The health establishment is one that knows how to march forward at speed and lead this crucial process in a short space of time when it is given the means to do so," the director-general said following the budget's passing. "These accomplishments were not taken for granted...[they] were made possible thanks to Arye Deri, who remained committed to the implementation of the coalition agreements."
The budget will allow the Health Ministry to "provide the necessary tools to preserve the health system and help it prepare for future challenges," Siman Tov added.
What are the Health Ministry's achievements in Israel's 2023-2024 budgets?
As part of the agreements reached between the Health and Finance ministries, The funding of Israeli healthcare services will be upped by some NIS 150 million as per the demographic need of such services, starting from next year onwards. Additionally, a NIS 650 million increase to the health basket was approved as part of the budget, as per the coalition agreements.
The Health Ministry will expand a reform that will address the shortage of medical professionals in Israel, with plans to increase the number of medical students, as well as nurses and other health professionals, across the periphery.
The ministry will also alter the budgeting model of general hospitals in Israel, with a NIS 60 million yearly increase agreed upon that will see the yearly governmental budget increase to hospitals stand at NIS 260 million each by 2024.