MedicineMedicine

MedicineMedicine

  • Issue: September 2005
  • Designer: Hayyimi Kivkovich
  • Stamp Size: 30.8 mm x 40 mm
  • Plate no.: 615 (2 phosphor bars) 616 (2 phosphor bars) 617 (2 phosphor bars) 618 (no phosphor bar)
  • Sheet of 15 stamps Tabs: 5
  • Printers: E. Lewin-Epstein Ltd.
  • Method of printing: offset

Hospitals in Israel boast an internationally recognized high standard of hospital services, offering six beds for every thousand people, and a short duration of stay. As is true all over the world, in Israel there is a trend towards a decrease in the number of general hospital beds and beds for mental health patients, and an increase in the number of geriatric beds, particularly in nursing wards.

Israel's hospital services are characterized by a minimal waiting period for hospitalization (there are waiting lists for admittance to nursing homes, but that is a budgetary problem rather than a lack of available beds).

This stamp series relates to four medical fields in Israel's hospital services.

Pediatrics

Pediatrics is a field of medicine within the area of general hospitalization. During recent years the tendency has been to build hospitals that specialize in a specific discipline, and the most prominent of which has been pediatrics. There are three pediatric hospitals in Israel today, located at the three largest medical centers in central Israel. However these pediatric hospitals are not separate entities, but rather an integral part of the broader complex of the general hospital.

Mental Health

The field of mental health care is the most neglected area of health care in Israel. Although budget allocations have caused a shortage in community services for the mentally ill, in the last five years there have been dramatic changes in the hospitalization criteria for the mentally ill. Today, only those patients with an active mental disease are hospitalized, and this has brought about 40% decrease in the number of beds required for the mentally ill. Patients with inactive (controlled) mental diseases have been transferred to "halfway houses" where they receive treatment that enables them to lead a normal community life within the framework of a protected environment.

Geriatrics

Geriatrics, or treatment for the elderly, is a medical discipline that has only developed during the last generation. In the same manner that one hundred years ago pediatric medicine developed into a separate medical discipline, so a similar, albeit slower, process has begun with regard to geriatric medicine.

Rehabilitation

Another important medical discipline is rehabilitation. Some specific areas of this discipline are the rehabilitation of amputees, patients who have sustained head injuries or spinal injuries, patients suffering from MS, and respiratory rehabilitation.
There is only one rehabilitation hospital in Israel, one general hospital with a most extensive rehabilitation wing and there are other rehabilitation departments in various medical centers and hospitals.

Prof. Mordechai Shani
The Chaim Sheba Medical Center

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Medicine In Israel