The pain clinic at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (popularly known as Ichilov hospital) announced on Tuesday that it would no longer review requests for medical marijuana prescriptions. The hospital said the reasons for deciding to suspend new medical cannabis prescriptions were overcrowding at the clinic, and violent threats, including death threats, from patients against physicians. The clinic said it would continue to review cancer patient requests for medical marijuana. Patients who have been treated for more than year at a the pain clinic will continue to receive cannabis as treatment. Sourasky's pain clinic, which distributes medical marijuana to many of the 11,000 patients in Israel with prescriptions, informed the Health Ministry over its unusual decision. "Working in the clinic became impossible because, twice a day, we were forced to eject a patient with a security guard," said Dr. Silbiv Bril, managing director at the pain clinic and the chairman of the Israel Pain Association. "When 30 to 40 patients are waiting in the halls carrying on and making threats, a patient even slit his wrists, it distances other patients; we've had quite a few complaints from other patients." Bril added, "We're not harming anyone. We're not required to prescribe this treatment to anyone who asks for it, we only give it after thorough medical considerations have been made; we're not preventing anyone from getting treatment. We didn't close the pain clinic, and these patients can come and get any other medication." The hospital explained that some patients who come with requests for medical marijuana refuse any other treatment for the prescription, even if the alternative is practiced according to standard medical protocol. Some patients have claimed that marijuana helped relieve their conditions, after experimenting with the drug at home, and came to the pain ward seeking additional treatment. "Lines in our ward have become endlessly long, so much so that I can't receive 'regular' patients in the clinic," Bril explained. "The tight follow-up on medical marijuana patients means we have thousands more visits a year, to the point where we're unable to function." Not all pain clinics in Israel prescribe medical marijuana. Therefore, patients nationwide are drawn to Sourasky to request cannabis prescriptions. "The hospital will no longer hands out medical marijuana prescriptions, except for oncology patients and those who have been receiving treatment at the pain ward for more than one year," a message from Sourasky Medical Center said. The Health Ministry recently established new procedures for approving medical marijuana prescriptions in an attempt to regulate the industry. The ministry wants the final word on which medical conditions and diseases are appropriate for treatment with medical cannabis. Some two months ago, during a Labor, Welfare and Health Committee forum, Health Ministry Director-General Ronni Gamzu announced that the ministry was increasing the number of doctors authorized to prescribe medical marijuana from eight to 20.
