What my stupid accident in Tel Aviv reveals about truly world class healthcare - Isabel Oakeshott
When helicopters hover above central Tel Aviv, occasionally it signals something joyful: the release of hostages. After macabre handovers by masked militia, Israeli captives freed by Hamas are airlifted to the city, where they receive specialist care at some of the best hospitals on Earth. The tale of how I too ended up in one of these medical facilities does not, unfortunately, feature any war reporting heroics. Embarrassingly, it involves falling off an e-scooter – a nasty accident that nonetheless provided a taste of world-leading healthcare.
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Staring at my waxen face in the bathroom mirror, I tried to figure out whether my pupils were dilated, a potential red flag with head injuries. I could not stop thinking about poor Natasha Richardson, the actress who tragically died after an apparently minor fall on an easy ski slope. For several hours after hitting her head, she had seemed OK. In reality, she had suffered a fatal brain injury. What if I too was having what doctors call a “lucid interval” – a brief period without any symptoms of a life threatening head injury? How could I risk falling asleep? And so it was that I found myself at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), a state-of-the-art facility designed to deal with casualties of war. When air raid sirens sound and locals take cover in bomb shelters, doctors and nurses at this hospital continue their work underground. It is all set up for electricity blackouts and flying missiles.
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I had come to Israel to learn more about war, and how it might eventually end. The plan was to talk to the IDF, listen to intelligence sources and hear the latest from the defence industry. .. Happily, I was still able to do all this, but the accident shifted my focus onto Israel’s widely admired healthcare system. The contrast with the NHS was too glaring to ignore.
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Based on mandatory health insurance with not-for-profit providers, Israel’s health system is means-tested but universal, ensuring even the poorest citizens are covered. By both efficiency and outcome, it ranks among the best in the world – as I can attest. By 10pm I was back in my hotel room, shocked, sore and feeling very stupid. I had been at the hospital for less than two hours. (In the UK, some 5,700 patients a day are forced to wait more than 12 hours to be seen at A&E).
The Sourasky uses all manner of time- and life-saving devices and AI wizardry to get patients through and out fast. For example, those who can are encouraged to speed up the initial admissions process by using simple self-service devices to provide their vital signs. Robots buzz around providing directions and other helpful information. In quiet moments, staff amuse themselves testing the AI: seeing if it understands slang (it does) and can tell the difference between male and female voices (it can).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025/04/08/what-my-stupid-e-bike-accident-reveals-about-healthcare/
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