March 1, 2009

Lecturer: Dr. Boaz Lev, Deputy Director-General, Ministry of Health

Preventative medicine services include public health services, health promotion and health education services. The preventative services included in the basket are detailed in the third amendment to the National Medical Insurance Law, in which the health services provided to the individual at specified times are listed.

The Law's intent is that these services, like the services listed in the second amendment, are meant to be under Sick Fund jurisdiction, but are temporarily in the hands of the Government until their active transfer to the Sick Funds. There is no update mechanism in the third amendment.

The dividing line between the second and third amendments is purely artificial. The question is whether it represents differences in essence or in procedure.

Preventive and curative medicine are actually on the same health/prevention - illness continuum, which trickles down from the Government authorities to the doctor and patient. The Government is responsible for this entire continuum in terms of supervision and setting of standards.

There are a number of ways to generate health. Primary prevention - prevention of the disease happening in the first place; secondary prevention, stopping the disease in its early stages, and tertiary prevention, reducing the damage after the disease is already in situ. The Government is definitely currently in the field of primary prevention.

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