Poland–Israel cooperation · Access to treatment
For several months the Healthcare Poland Foundation has been building one thing with partners in Israel: an orderly route for patients from Poland to consultations, diagnostics and therapies that are not yet available in our system, or become available with a delay that in oncology can be decisive.
The premise: delay is a clinical parameter
In public debate, the time it takes to reach treatment is usually treated as an organisational inconvenience — a queue, a date, a procedure. In diseases with fast dynamics it is something else. There, time is a clinical variable: the difference between a therapy available now and the same therapy available in nine months is not a difference of comfort but a difference of prognosis. We take this as the premise that orders all of our work.
An institutional consequence follows. If an option exists beyond Poland’s borders that a treating physician would want to use for their patient, then the absence of an orderly route to that option is a problem of the system, not a private difficulty of the family. A family translating discharge summaries at midnight and hunting for the e-mail address of a foreign clinic is doing work an institution should have done.
This is not medical tourism
Medical tourism is a commercial relationship between a patient and a foreign provider. What we are building is something different: informational and organisational infrastructure around the decision of the treating physician. The entry point to the route is a doctor — not an advertisement and not a search engine.
In practice this means that a physician in Poland — when they judge that their patient could benefit from options available in Israel — knows whom to call, which documents are required, how long it takes, what it costs and who is responsible for what. The patient does not buy hope from us. Their physician obtains a complete set of information on which a decision can be taken — or deliberately not taken.
Three pillars of the work
Framework with Sheba
Sheba Medical Center is among the world’s leading clinical centres. Under the arrangement being designed, Sheba’s International Division receives patients while the Foundation organises documentation, communication and logistics on the Polish side. The framework remains under discussion — we will announce when it is finalised.
Navigation service for physicians
Intake from the treating physician, a completeness check of the records, arranging consultation at a reference centre, translation, preparation of documents for the applicable access procedures, and coordination of subsequent steps between the Israeli centre and the physician in Poland.
Mapping access conditions
Therapies already registered outside the European Union but not yet in Poland: who may apply, on what legal basis, through which authorised channel and at what cost. We do this with pharmaceutical and legal partners so that what we tell a patient is still true three months later.
How the route runs
- Intake from the treating physician. The route begins with the doctor who knows the patient and carries responsibility for the course of treatment. The enquiry carries a clinical question, not a general request for help.
- Completeness check of the records. We verify whether the documentation allows a foreign centre to issue an opinion. Gaps are identified before any cost is triggered.
- Consultation at a reference centre. We arrange the consultation, the translations and the flow of documents. The content of the opinion belongs to the centre; we are answerable for it arriving complete and in time.
- The regulatory path. If the consultation indicates a therapy unavailable in Poland, we prepare documents for the applicable access procedure — including targeted import where the statutory conditions are met. The application is filed by an authorised entity, not by the Foundation.
- Cost and timeline on the table. Patient and physician learn the real cost and the real timeline before the decision is taken, not after it. If the route is unrealistic, we say so plainly.
- Return to the treating physician. Every variant ends with the complete set of information handed back to the doctor in Poland. It is they who continue to lead the patient — including when the answer is “no”.
The limits of our role, stated plainly
- We do not qualify patients for treatment and we do not issue medical opinions.
- We do not buy, import or resell medicinal products.
- We do not promise supply, reimbursement or funding of any therapy.
- We do not advertise medicinal products to the general public.
The medical decision belongs to the physician and the regulatory decision to the competent authorities. Our role is to make those decisions possible sooner and on complete information. This is why the Foundation’s remuneration for navigation work is a flat fee, independent of the price of any medicinal product — a condition without which the separation between organisational help and commercial interest cannot be maintained.
Records and data protection
Medical records are not correspondence. Please do not send them via LinkedIn, messaging applications or ordinary e-mail. Once an enquiry is received we indicate a secured channel for transferring data and the scope that is genuinely required — health data belongs to the special categories of personal data and we process it only to the extent necessary to perform the task the physician has asked for.
Who this invitation is addressed to
Physicians
If you are treating a patient for whom you are considering options available in Israel, write to us. We will answer a specific question specifically — and if the answer is “this will not work”, we will say so at once.
Patients and families
Speak to your treating physician and ask them to contact us. This is not a formality: without a doctor the route has neither a point of departure nor a point of arrival.
Partners
Centres, pharmaceutical entities, law firms and patient organisations willing to co-build this route on the Polish or the Israeli side are invited to discuss the scope and terms of cooperation.
Enquiries: access to therapy and cooperation
This form is addressed to treating physicians, to families acting in agreement with their physician, and to institutions interested in cooperation. Please do not send medical records through this channel — once we receive your enquiry we will indicate a secure route for transferring data.
Alternatively: global@healthcarepoland.pl. Please mark the subject line “Israel — physician enquiry” or “Israel — cooperation”.
This material is informational. It is not medical advice, not advertising of a medicinal product and not an offer within the meaning of the Polish Civil Code. The Healthcare Poland Foundation does not trade in medicinal products and takes no part in qualifying patients for treatment. Cooperation with Israeli centres remains under discussion; its finalisation will be announced separately.
