Healing thyself

We had our first flutter with the Israeli health system yesterday. Generally held to be excellent by everyone, including the Arabs, the hospitals, technology and skills of Israel professionals certainly impressed me. We had a bit of a blood pressure fling, enough to encourage some professional intervention, so arrangements were made quickly to see someone highly recommended in the field. As luck would have it, he was also Belgian. Never mind why; this was a good thing.

As visitors to the State, fees were full-bore but surprisingly modest. The visit was less than $200 and medicine a derisory $6. You can't build a third-world medical system like the U.S. on those rates, where an emergency room visit can cost in the thousands, and medicines—for the most simple relief—in the hundreds of dollars. The blood test today was only about $55. Now I ask you: How can we possibly gain good health without being impoverished?

The doctor was all business and I was suitably impressed at his approach and manner, and—I know this is incredible—his sense of humor. We will continue with him until this little problem is put down.

Pharmaceuticals are in another world here. Medicine prices are regulated as in many European countries so we free-economy suckers in the U.S. pay the lion's share of global corporate profits. We were given a prescription, but it is quite possible—almost anywhere in greater Palestine—to buy drugs that would require prescriptions in the U.S. without paperwork (other than barbiturates, opiates or other habit-forming nonsense), and at ridiculous pricing. As a result, and often as a necessity for various reasons, people who do NOT have access to either Israeli treatment or national insurance often self-administer as their only course of action. It may well be that, with the Internet providing information to support diagnosis, indicated treatment and recommended drugs, self-doctoring may be entirely acceptable when compared to some of the medical systems I've seen in my lifetime.

The Palestine Authority is aware of its shortcomings in providing some sort of universal health support and I've been assured by people who should know that this is being addressed. I am not aware of its priority in the scheme of things.

Excuses and reasons abound. They have only limited access to technology—apparently the Israelis haven't licensed the import of more than a couple of MIR machines and a smattering of other gear—and staff is either untrained or absent altogether in meaningful numbers. Many Palestinians have been trained in the medical professions but practice elsewhere. Living in West Bank or Jerusalem is banned to most of them as it requires a permit that is rarely granted. Palestinians complain that this is part of the Israeli strategy of encouraging Arab exodus, and they may be right. Certainly, the evidence on the ground would seem to support their fears.

We're supposed to call the doctor Sunday morning and report progress. We hope that by then this will all be moot, and that we don't have to rely further on ANY medical system, Israeli, Arab or otherwise.

As a foot note to this, when I visited Jerusalem in the late 1970s I arrived with a condition that became life-threatening within days. I had visited a doctor in Scotland shortly before and been treated (with codeine), but I continued to deteriorate. It was only through the actions of a young intern at an Arab hospital on the Mount of Olives that the cause of the malady was discovered and a cure initiated, with no more technology than a quick, educated mind and a microscope. The cost of the medicine: $2. The doctor refused payment.