A conference dedicated to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on mental resilience in Israel, sponsored by Israel Hayom and the Israeli Medical Association, kicked off Tuesday.
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The event began at 9 a.m. at the Zappa event hall in Tel Aviv. Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth opened the event by saying, "I'm happy to open this important conference. Since March 2020, we've been living in fear of the pandemic, something we never experienced. It happened on our watch – we talked about vaccines, work, and the economy. But we didn't talk about resilience, about the dad who lost his job, the young girl who isn't going on dates, the difficulties and the feelings that aren't being discussed. This is an important conference."
President Isaac Herzog's wife, Michal, said at the opening of the conference that she had met this week with parents of children who were dealing with mental health challenges – "the children were happy, but the parents looked exhausted after the two hard years," she said.
"The years of the pandemic hit like a hurricane. When the pandemic erupted, we all enlisted and accepted all the disruptions, and now that the first storm is over, we're looking at the damage and what needs to be fixed," Herzog said.
Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton said that for two years, she had been saying that mental health issues needed to be addressed.
"We've seen it in the community, in society, and in the school system – depression, loneliness, financial problems, families shut up at home day after day, and now we're encountering it in the school system, it's out in the open, and we're prepared for it," Shasha-Biton said.
"There is a lot of trouble making an appointment for a psychologist. It takes a year," the education minister added.
Addressing the issue of vaccinations at schools, Shasha-Biton said, "Within a week there will be mobile vaccination units at schools. Parents prefer to go to community clinics, but we'll allow vaccinations outside school premises. The mobile units won't be actually inside the schools, but outside the gates."
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, speaking at one of the panels, said he was happy the conference was taking place, as he saw mental health as an important issue for the public.
"Mental health is hushed up in society. People haven't wanted to address it. The budget we passed makes mental health a top priority," Horowitz said.
Horowitz told Israel Hayom healthcare analyst Ran Reznick that "The Treasury functionaries have a national outlook that leaves healthcare behind and that has to be changed. The finance minister shares my opinion. There is an old-fashioned capitalist economic view that assumes that money spent on health is money wasted. The healthcare budget must be as important as the defense budget."
"I am working to move the chronically mentally ill from mental hospitals to rehabilitation in the community. The issue isn't just finding additional facilities, but also additional workers," Horowitz added.
At a conference panel dedicated to bringing mental health issues into the open, Director of Mental Health Services at Maccabi Health Services Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, said, "There are huge lines. People wait three months or more to see a psychiatrist. There is a major influx of children and youth needing appointments because of the damage done by the coronavirus."
MK Michal Waldiger, head of the Knesset Caucus for Mental Health among the General Public, said, "We're talking about building a system but at the moment there isn't one. Children and families need care from the time children are young. I worked for the welfare services, and there's a four to six-month wait for an initial intake for children.
"Ra'am is given 53 billion shekels [$16.8 billion] without priorities, when mental health services need more money," Waldiger said.
Five more panels were slated to take place at Tuesday's conference, dedicated to issues ranging from the elderly to adolescents, to ways of teaching mental health, the connection between mental and physical well-being, and the difficulties faced by parents of teenagers.
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