A special inter-ministerial commission led by the directors general of the ministries of finance and health presented recommendations to the government regarding the format of the new hospital in Beersheba, which should begin operating in 2028.
It was originally planned that the hospital would be owned by one of the health insurance funds and would not be managed by a government agency in order to reduce the centralization of the medical services market and avoid conflicts of interest on the part of the Ministry of Health.
In 2023, the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Moshe Bar-Simantov, began to seek a change in this decision and transfer the construction and management of the hospital to the state, but the Ministry of Finance was categorically against it.
As a result, the inter-ministerial commission recommended that the new hospital be jointly owned by two small health insurance funds, Meuhedet and Leumit, and that the operational management of the hospital be carried out by the Sheba Medical Center.
The new hospital will have a capacity of 600 beds. It will have to reduce the load on the Soroka hospital and significantly improve access to medical care for the population of the Negev.