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Health care in Israel is universal and participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory. All Israeli citizens are entitled to basic health care as a fundamental right. Based on legislation passed in 1995, all citizens resident in the country must join one of four official health insurance funds which cover basic medical treatment, but can increase medical coverage and improve their options by purchasing private health insurance. In a survey of 48 countries in 2013, Israel's health system was ranked fourth in the world in terms of efficiency, and in 2014 it ranked seventh out of 51. In 2015, Israel was ranked sixth healthy country in the world by Bloomberg rankings 〔http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/singapore-ranked-worlds-healthiest-country-uk-fails-to-make-top-20-a6716281.html〕 ==History== During the Ottoman era in Palestine, as the fledgling Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community of Palestine) was established and grew via the First Aliyah, it began to build its own medical system, as the cost for treatment in hospitals and clinics in Ottoman Palestine was often beyond the economic means of the pioneers. Jewish agricultural settlements, which were financially backed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, established a system of free medical care. A mutual aid system was organized by the settlers to deal with sporadic cases of illness among them. A lone physician traveled between the settlements and also ran a pharmacy in Jaffa which he visited twice a week. Jews who did not live in the agricultural settlements often had to wait for the doctor to arrive in Jaffa or pay out of pocket for treatment in the settlements. In 1902, the first Jewish hospital, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, opened in Jerusalem. Additional Jewish hospitals were built in Jerusalem and Jaffa. In 1911, the Judea Worker's Health Fund, which later evolved into Clalit Health Services, was established as the first Zionist health insurance fund in the country. During World War I, the Ottoman authorities closed the Jewish hospitals in Jerusalem and Jaffa. The Ottoman Army seized the medical equipment and drafted most of the doctors. With the war's end and the British conquest of Palestine, the Yishuv was left without an effective hospital system. In 1918, the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America established the American Zionist Medical Unit (AZMU) to rebuild the Yishuv's medical system. With assistance from the AZMU and foreign contributions, the Jewish hospitals were reopened, and a new one was established in Jaffa. In 1919, hospitals were opened in Safed and Tiberias, and a hospital was opened in Haifa in 1922. The AZMU was turned into the Hadassah Medical Federation, which oversaw the Yishuv's health system.〔Shvarts, Shifra: ''The Workers' Health Fund in Eretz Israel: Kupat Holim, 1911-1937''〕 With the start of British rule, measures were taken to improve public health in the area. They began during British military rule, and continued to grow with the establishment of the British Mandate in 1922. In Jerusalem, accumulated refuse heaps were removed, public rubbish bins were installed; the entire population was vaccinated against smallpox, and pools and cisterns were covered with mosquito repellent as part of the campaign to eradicate malaria. In 1929, the Zionist Commission and the British authorities sent the Jewish epidemiologist Gideon Mer to Rosh Pinna to establish a laboratory for malaria research. Mer's laboratory was instrumental in eradicating the disease.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Galilee cornerstone )〕 The campaign against malaria was headed by Hadassah until 1927, when the organization turned responsibility over to the authorities. The British authorities also established a government-run health system, headed by a health department that focused on public health and laboratory services. Government hospitals and clinics were established. The British government focused most of its health efforts on the Arab population and government employees, and invested little in Jewish health, as it was assumed that the Yishuv was capable of managing its own healthcare system. With the expansion of the Yishuv through the Third and Fourth Aliyah, the number of new Jewish medical facilities grew. The number of Hadassah hospital beds tripled, and hospitals not affiliated with Hadassah, including a few private facilities, were also established. New Jewish health insurance funds were also formed.〔 The Yishuv's health system formed the basis of the Israeli healthcare system with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The Israeli government replaced the British Mandate's health department with a Ministry of Health, and established regional health bureaus and an epidemiological service. Hospital facilities formerly run by the British authorities were taken over by the state, and new hospitals and clinics were established. At the end of 1948, only 53% of Israel's Jewish population was insured, about 80% of them by Clalit, with a few small health funds insuring the remainder. Throughout the following years, Israel's healthcare system was expanded, and within a decade, about 90% were insured. In 1973, a law was enacted which forced all employers to participate in the medical insurance of their workers, by means of a direct payment to the Health Maintenance Fund in which the workers were members. The duty of participation was eventually changed and diminished as part of the arrangements law (חוק הסדרים במשק המדינה) of 1991. In 1988 the government appointed a Commission of Inquiry to examine the effectiveness and efficiency of the Israeli health care system. The commission handed in the final report in 1990. The main recommendation of this report was to enact a National Health Insurance law in Israel. The National Insurance Law came into effect in 1995. In the late 2000s, a future shortage of doctors and nurses became a concern, as the rate of doctors graduating from Israel's medical schools annually had dropped to 300, 200 less than needed, and many Soviet immigrant doctors and nurses began to retire. That number was estimated to eventually rise to 520 with the opening of a fifth medical school, but still below the 900 graduates that will be needed in 2022. This caused concerns of a shortage of medical personnel, which would imperil the quality and speed of medical care in the country. As a result, Israel began offering incentives to Jewish doctors to emigrate from abroad and practice medicine in Israel. Initially, only about 100 doctors from the former Soviet Union immigrated under this program every year, but the program is now attracting doctors from North America and Western Europe. An investigative committee looking into the issue also called for incentives to be offered to Israeli medical students who had not been accepted in Israel and had gone to study medicine abroad to return to Israel, and for a program that involves 150 international students studying medicine in Israel to be shut down. In addition, the Israeli Health Ministry announced the launching of a new nursing assistants' profession, and increased nursing education programs in colleges. Israel has also begun a program under which doctors from Eastern Europe work in Israel in fields such as pediatrics and internal medicine. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Health care in Israel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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