The Barzilai Medical Center is situated in the Mediteranean coastal city of Ashkelon, on the border of the Gaza Strip. The hospital is the sole facility for the healthcare needs of a population of almost half a million residents from an area of 1,500 sq kilometers including: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, Shderot, agricultural settlements, including kibbutzim and moshavim around the Gaza Strip and of course IDF soldiers serving in the area. These services are delivered to a highly diverse patient population including Jews, Christians and Moslems.

MDA ambulance transfers baby with heart defect from Gaza Strip to Sheba Medical Center for life-saving operation

One in four Israelis is avoiding medical treatment because they cannot afford to pay doctor's bills, an Israeli Medical Association survey revealed on Monday.

Some 28 percent of respondents said they were neglecting an illness. Forty percent of those respondents reported their medical condition had deteriorated as a result.

The survey, conducted by the Geocartographic Institute, also pointed out that the majority of those who could not afford treatment were Sephardic Jews of Middle Eastern origins.

Members of the Shas party, representing the Sephardic religious community, lashed out at the government after the survey's findings were released.

"The government has created a situation in which medical services are discriminatory," Shas leader MK Eli Yishai said. "The Israeli government has made poverty into an epidemic."

Israeli Medical Association Chairman Dr. Yoram Blachar said the survey revealed a "shameful" situation.

"We have abandoned children, the elderly and other poverty-stricken segments of society," Blachar said. "The ideal of medical equality has disappeared and the government must do everything it can to deal with the crisis."

By Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondent, and Itim
30/01/2006

In one of those cruel medical ironies, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is most commonly found in developing countries, where blood tests and other costly methods of detection are less available.

An Israeli-born doctor stands at the head of team from pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. who announced this week the FDA approval of the first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer.