I said I’d expound on my experience of private medicine and, true to my word, here it is. The Herzliya Medical Center is very nicely appointed. The beds are actually comfortable with electric controls of the kind that have been standard in the US for the past 60 years. Compare this to the iron thing you had to pull with considerable might to raise the head in the Health Fund hospital and you can see why I was happy. The bathrooms are in the rooms, instead of the hall, and you have to share with only 2 other people. Best of all, the nurses were attentive, helpful and plentiful. In other words, the difference between socialized and private medicine is night and day.
The only frustration, and it was a big one, involved waiting for the doctor. I should have known this would be a sore point from the outset. When I went for my first consultation with him, a surgeon who held the exalted rank of professor, a title of which Israelis have a Teutonic awe, I arrived to find the tiny waiting room stuffed with people and the doctor nowhere to be found. He finally turned up about an hour later. I thought this was bad, but I didn’t know that this was the luckiest I would get with him.
When the day arrived for my operation, I got there a little bit earlier than my 3pm appointment, just to be sure that I wouldn’t keep the doctor and his scalpel waiting. The check-in went smoothly and then I was sent to the ward where everything ground to a halt. I was told to sit in the waiting room – this place was equipped with television monitors that gave patient status updates like the arrivals and departures on an airport display – where I waited. Then I waited some more. Then along about 5pm the elevator doors opened and in strolled the professor. He was just arriving! I continued to wait another hour and a half until someone came and fetched me.
Fast forward to the next day when I’m waiting to be released. Around about noon I got the bad news: the doctor won’t get there to make his rounds until 6 or 7pm. After alerting the media to get the message through to those standing by to pick me up, I settled in for a more or less comfortable wait. 6 o’clock came, 7 o’clock came and went. No professor. The guy finally turns up at 9pm. There was no point in being surly. I thanked him, took my paperwork and made a dash for freedom. The bottom line: the private Herzliya Medical Center is infinitely nicer and more comfortable than the socialist option. But unless you have the patience of Job, avoid the professors.
