The Health Services Basket Committee must start working on time. But as of today, the members of the Basket Committee for 2027 have not yet been appointed.
And this is not just another bureaucratic delay.
The Basket Committee is required to examine hundreds of new medications, treatments, and medical technologies and decide which of them will enter the health basket. Behind every such request are patients who are waiting. For some of them, this is a treatment that can save or extend lives.
Every week of delay in appointing the committee reduces the time available to its members to hold professional, in-depth, and responsible discussions, and may ultimately delay the entry of vital treatments into the basket.
Last year, we already dealt with a delay in the work of the Basket Committee, among other things during a period when the State of Israel operated without a serving Minister of Health. Back then, together with representatives of patient rights organizations and physician organizations, I exerted pressure on the Prime Minister to advance the process.
We must not repeat the same mistake.
Today I turned to Health Minister Haim Katz with a demand to urgently complete the appointment of the members of the Public Committee for the Expansion of the Health Services Basket for 2027.
The appointment process needs to move forward already in the months of August–September. We are already in the middle of September, and the committee has not yet been appointed.
For a person waiting for a vital medication, this time is not an item on a schedule. It is their health, their quality of life, and sometimes their very lives.
I call on the Minister of Health to act without delay, complete the appointment of the committee, and enable it to begin its work on time.
When it comes to health and human lives, we must not waste even a single day.