Michal Froman left Sharei Tzedek hospital today, after being stabbed by an Arab terrorist in a clothing store in the community of Tekoa on Monday.

The terrorist stabbed her in the shoulder, puncturing her lung. Froman is 18 weeks pregnant. The fetus was not harmed from the attack.

Froman is also the daughter-in-law of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman, the chief rabbi of Tekoa. He was a big believer in coexistence with the Arabs based on the shared religious values of Judaism and Islam, whatever those values might be.

Michal Froman shared, and despite the attack, still shares those same exact beliefs as her father-in-law.

At least two medical centers in Israel are locked in a power struggle with the Health Ministry over funding support for MRI procedures.

The number of MRI exams carried out in the afternoon and evening hours was seriously reduced beginning December 1 by the Clalit HMO at Beilinson Medical Center in Petach Tikvah and Be’er Sheva’s Sorokah Medical Center, Galei Tzahal Army Radio reported Tuesday.

This, despite a reform announced by Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman that was supposed to sharply cut the long wait for such procedures.

Because the MRI machine-hours have been slashed in the afternoon and evening hours at the two hospitals, many clinics have been unable to schedule patients for MRI exams as well.

Officials blamed a lack of state funding was responsible for the cut in services.

“Unfortunately we ran out of funds to operate the second shift, so we were forced to reduce our services by 30 percent,” said a spokesperson for Beilinson Medical Center.

“Operating the MRI in afternoon and evening hours is only possible with funding from the state,” said Soroka Medical Center. “The budget just could not stretch far enough, and therefore our services were reduced.”

The Ministry of Health has responded that the “availability and quality of services in the health basket are dependent upon the financial situation of the specific health fund; the ministry will review the matter with the director-general.”

However, Litzman added bluntly that if the hospitals did not cooperate and shorten the wait for MRI exams, he would “not hesitate to cancel their arrangements of choice.”

Such arrangements refer to agreements between the HMOs and hospitals to determine which medical center receives patients for which particular treatment.

Such a decision can exert major influence on an institution’s economic development.

Bottom line: if the hospitals don’t step up and cooperate, the health ministry is not likely to provide them with the support they need for further growth — at least, as long as Ya’acov Litzman remains health minister.

Former MK Orit Struk waits for the arrival of the ambulance transporting her son to the emergency room of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, on December 9, 2015.

Her son Yitzchak, along with an IDF soldier, were stabbed by an Arab terrorist in Hebron on Wednesday afternoon.

(JNi.media) Those learned books and articles urging “difficult” political choices by Israel based on the ever-present “ticking demographic time bomb” of a growing Arab population against a shrinking Jewish population should probably be scrapped. According to a Central Bureau of Statistics report offering selected data on the occasion of the International Child Day 2015, the difference in birth rates between the Jewish and Arab populations have declined significantly over the last decade.

Some 33% of Israel’s population are children under the age of 17. 41% of the Arab population are children, compared with about 31% of the Jewish population. The differences stem mainly from differences in fertility rates. Until the early 2000s, the average number of children a woman was expected to have during her lifetime was approximately 4.3 per Arab woman and 2.6 for a Jewish woman. These differences have declined significantly over the last decade. In 2014, the total fertility rate of an Arab woman was 3.17 children in her lifetime, compared with 3.11 for Jewish women. This marks a 26% decline in Arab births, and a 20% increase in Jewish births.

Incidentally, the fertility rate in France is 2.01 per woman. In Norway it is 1.9.

Among cities with 100,000 or more residents, B’nei B’rak is the youngest, with 47% children, and Tel Aviv the oldest — only 21% children.

At the end of 2014 there were 2.74 million Israeli children ages 0 – 17, constituting 33% of the overall population. 1.945 million of them were Jewish (71.0%), 713,000 Arabs (26.0%) and 82,000 (3.0%) were classified as “others.”

About 97% of Jewish children were born in Israel, and about 78% of them were born to fathers who were also born in Israel.

Most children in Israel live with two parents (about 92%). About 212,000 children (8%) live with only one parent. Most of the children who live in one-parent families live with their mother (93%).

Here’s a loaded statistic: percentage of TV ownership or cable or satellite TV subscription is lower in households with children than without. Also, the more children there are in the household, the lower the percentage of ownership of television, and cable or satellite subscription.

Israeli security forces arrested a Hamas terrorist in a Hebron hospital early Thursday and killed his cousin who attacked them during the undercover operation.

The terrorist, 22-year-old Azzam Shaldallah, stabbed Yisrael ben Aharon in the eastern Gush Etzion community of Metzad on October 25.

Ben Aharon had stopped his car after it was hit by rocks. Shaldallah then stabbed him, but Aharon fought the terrorist and managed to shoot and wound him.

Israeli soldiers and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) dressed in civilians clothes and infiltrated the hospital where Shaldallah was being treated and had found refuge.

Palestinian media said the security forces pretended they were bringing in a pregnant woman and then rushed to Shaldallah’s room, pulled out weapons and arrested him. The terrorist’s cousin violently interfered and was shot and killed.

Terrorists recently have evaded arrest by Israeli forces by turning themselves over to Palestinian Authority authorities, who protect them from arrest instead of handing them over to Israel.

(JNi.media) Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan has posted on his Facebook page that he is asking Israeli police to consider charging the Arabs who declined to help Adele Bennett after she had been knifed in the Old City Saturday night.

“Whole groups of Arabs looked on and saw the incident and did not open their mouths, and laughed,” Bennett, who had lost her husband, Aharon, in the attack, told reporters on Sunday from her hospital bed. “I really begged for help, help, help me,” she said. “I heard curses, they spat in my face, one slapped me. The knife was still in me, in the neck, still inside my body. They slapped my face, laughed, shouted, no one tried to help.” Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi, who rushed to help the stabbed couple, was also killed.

Erdan wrote: This evening I visited, along with the Prime Minister… Adele Bennett who was wounded with her baby in the attack in the Old City and lost her husband Aaron who was murdered… Following Adele’s shocking testimony about the behavior of the storekeepers and passersby who saw a woman in the Old City with a knife in the neck crying out for help and instead of helping her behaved like animals — laughed at her, beat and spat on, I asked the police to urgently consider initiate criminal proceedings against them for failure to prevent a crime.

Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA has cited the relevant law, published 30 June 1998:

1. (a) It is an obligation of a person to aid a person in front of him, due to a sudden, severe and immediate danger to his life, to his bodily integrity or to his health, when the person nearby can help, without risking or endanger himself.

(b) Someone who notifies the authorities or alerts another person who can provide the assistance required, is deemed to have helped for the purposes of this Act; In this section, “authorities” – the Israel Police, Magen David Adom and firefighting service.

2. (a) The provisions of Section 5 of the Unjust Enrichment Law, 1979, shall also apply when the qualifying person operated under his obligation under Section 1.

(c) The court may require the person causing the danger that the aided person encountered, including the aided person himself if he caused this danger, to indemnify those who assisted in accordance with their obligation under the provisions of Article 1 for reasonable expenses and disbursements incurred.

3. Subject to the provisions of Article 2 (a), there is nothing in the provisions of this Act that shall derogate from the provisions of the law.

4. A person who contravenes the provisions of Section 1 of this Act, shall be liable to a fine.

5. The Minister of Justice is responsible for implementation of this law.

6. The commencement of this law is at the conclusion of 90 days from its publication.

In 1994, Israel introduced a law that required hospitals obtain a special government license to purchase or use an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine to treat patients.

This law was specifically passed to limit the number of MRI machines in Israel to one per 750,000 people.

The Labor-led government’s logic was to prevent MRI machines from being “overused” and costing the insurance companies too much money. The Labor party was also in charge of the Ministry of Health at the time.

As a result, this much-needed medical tool became unavailable to the many Israelis who needed it, and just as bad, even if you received permission for your much needed MRI exam, you could easily end up waiting weeks before you saw the inside of a machine.

It also resulted in a black-market of MRI machines, where legitimate hospitals surreptitiously acquired MRI machines for other uses such as research, and then moved them over for medical diagnosis, but didn’t report it to the government.

Deputy Health Minister (there is no Minister of Health) Yaakov Litzman (UTJ) has always been an advocate of MRI machines and has done much to increase their numbers and use in Israel.

In 2010, Litzman introduced a plan to introduce an MRI into every hospital in Israel, and managed to get 8 new MRI machines approved that year.

In 2011, Litzman dedicated a new MRI machine, specifically to be used instead of autopsies, which are problematic according to Jewish law.

In 2012, Litzman said he was retroactively approving all the unlicensed and unregistered MRI machines in Israeli hospitals.

Litzman’s latest plan for MRI machine access is to reduce the wait time for getting an MRI exam.

Litzman announced at the opening ceremony of a Terem medical center in Beer Sheva, that he plans to inform the Prime Minister of his newest MRI-related plan which will make the maximum wait time for an MRI exam to no more than 3 days.

This is a (deputy) minister who is doing a good job.