The IDF is updating its medical criteria for conscripts and will now allow cancer survivors who have had a clean bill of health for at least five years before enlisting to serve in combat roles. The military is also opening service positions to HIV-positive recruits for the first time, Israel Hayom has learned.
The new guidelines are slated to take effect in January 2019.
According to IDF criteria, the highest medical profile a recruit can be assigned is 97. The lowest profile is 21, meaning a person is ineligible for conscription because physical or mental challenges, although in some cases recruits assigned a profile of 21 can still volunteer.
The changes are the result of the IDF Medical Corps' two-year campaign. Army officials explained to Israel Hayom that the changes have been instituted with the goal of ensuring that the recruits are unharmed while executing the responsibilities of their role at the highest possible level.
The most significant change in the updated medical criteria has to do with recruits who are HIV positive. Until now, HIV-positive status resulted in an automatic 21 profile. Once the recruits were dismissed from compulsory service, the IDF would suggest that they volunteer, leaving the choice of whether or not to serve in their hands. From now on, HIV-positive recruits will be assigned a medical profile of 45, meaning that they can be drafted, although not into combat roles, since the management of their condition demands that they take medication consistently and the army cannot guarantee that the drugs would be supplied to them if they were on an operation or behind enemy lines.
The Israel Aids Task Force welcomed the updated policy, calling it "a welcome step that will help contain the existing stigma about [HIV positive] people in society in general and the army in particular."
The change might indicate a massive shift in attitudes toward HIV and the HIV-positive community, but in practice, it only affects 10 to 15 recruits per year. Thus far, about five HIV-positive recruits per year have gone on to volunteer for military service upon being rejected for the draft.
Another major change affects young men and women who survived childhood cancer and have been cancer-free for at least five years at the time they enlist. IDF policy thus far has been to assign cancer survivors a profile of 64, making them ineligible for combat service. Starting in January, however, cancer survivors who have had a clean bill of health for five years will be eligible for a medical profile as high as 72, making them eligible to serve in certain combat units.
Medical profiles are assigned when potential recruits receive their first military notice, usually between age 16 and 17. If the future recruit has not yet been cancer-free for five years at the time of their initial intake, they can ask to be re-evaluated when the five-year waiting period is up, and put in a request to be assigned to a different role. This change is projected to make an additional 100 recruits per year available for combat service.
The IDF is also changing its weight regulations. Overweight recruits, who previously were assigned a profile of 97 and allowed to enlist in combat units, will now be assigned profiles of 72, which restricts the units they can join. The change is designed to lower the dropout rate among combat recruits during training.
Another change pertains to the temporary profile assigned to soldiers requiring medical leave. Thus far, a profile of 24 could be assigned to soldiers for three months to a year, depending on their condition, and soldiers would temporarily leave the army and undergo treatment at a civilian medical facility. From now on, the army intends to shorten the period for which a profile of 24 is assigned and, when possible, keep the soldiers in the army in jobs they can perform in spite of their medical status. When cleared, soldiers given a 24 can rejoin combat units.
