Hospitals Tell Knesset Committee Incentives a Must in Recruiting Physicians to Periphery

In a hearing conducted last week by the Knesset Committee on Committee Distributive Justice and Social Equality, Dr. Erez On, Director of the Baruch Padeh Medical Center, Poriya (near Tiberias), explained just how difficult it is to recruit physicians to medical centers in peripheral cities.

Dr. On told the committee he had reviewed the Health Ministry's data on the internship preferences of medical students, which suggest all too clearly that "they are not interested in going to the periphery! This is a fundamental problem we must deal with. Incentives constitute a partial compensation for a doctor who arrives in the periphery, and they should be a means for hospital directors with which to help him along according to the needs of each medical center."

Committee Chairman MK Miki Zohar (Likud) promised to promote a law to provide doctors who choose to work in peripheral communities with "a significant incentive," making it worth his while to serve away from the center, and, should the law pass, "improve significantly the state of medicine in the periphery."

IMA Chairman Prof. Leonid Eidelman told the committee the current health ministry's budget does not allocate any funds to encouraging physicians to move to the periphery. "While in previous years as much as $20 million annually were allocated, the 2017 has no mention of such funds," Prof. Eidelman complained, suggesting the funds should be entrusted to hospital directors, because "every hospital director knows how to best channel the incentives because he knows which doctors are missing in which department."

Chariman Zohar summed up the hearing with a promise to demand a minimum annual budget allocation for the 207-18 budget of $13.5 million for medical doctors and $8 million for interns" who choose to work in the periphery, said funds to be managed by local hospital directors.