An Avant-Garde National Home Hospice Service, Israel.
Research on palliative care in the Israel, Bentur, Resnizky and Shnoor, 2005, found that less than 10% of the patients who needed palliative care actually received it, the main reasons cited for this discrepancy were lack of funds and patient’s
knowledge about their right to receive palliative care. An additional problem appeared to be a myriad of providers involved concurrently in the patient’s treatment.
The Israeli Ministry of Health, 2009, issued a directive that required community health
providers and hospitals to establish, within four years, palliative care and hospice services to all dying patients.
Bentur N et al in their 2012 paper, reported three inpatient hospices in Israel-in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa-which have been allotted a total of about 80 beds and serve some 1,000 patients per year and in additional, 3-4 hospitals belonging to the Christian Mission that take in end-of-life patients who cannot be at home but have not yet reached the hospice stage, or for whom there is no hospice in their vicinity.
Two years later in 2014, World Health Organation published the Global Atlas of Palliative Care at the End of Life, Israel is classified as 4a “preliminary integration into mainstream service provision”.
In 2016, the Ministry of Health published the national program for palliative care and
end-of-life situations and stated that although there has been development and growth in the palliative care services,
still, a decade later, according to estimates, only a few thousands, with life-threatening diseases are receiving
palliative care and a handful are receiving palliative care consultations and service.
Professionalism–the need to ensure all staff members are carefully selected, receive the relevant competencies and are equipped
with a very high set of service skills.
Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2019; 5(1): e4-e8. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-5-e008
