Israel Matzav

Medical residents resign, ignoring Netanyahu request for 2 more weeks

For the last several months, Israel's doctors and hospitals have been carrying out labor sanctions. The real underlying issue - which is not being addressed - is the over-involvement of government in the medical system. We saw one result of that in a post that I did on Sunday.

About a month ago, the government reached a settlement with the doctors' union. The doctors - who are so underpaid that in some cities they are allowed to make up for it by seeing patients privately on hospital grounds (known as sharap here in Jerusalem where it exists) - agreed to a settlement that granted them a substantial raise. But the settlement left the medical residents in no better position than they were before. Medical residents here are grossly underpaid (I heard a doctor last week say that his monthly income came to about NIS 7,500 for which he would work 330-350 hours) and they felt that the more senior doctors were not representing their interests. They submitted a mass resignation letter, which was voided by the Labor court. They then submitted individual resignation letters which were to take effect on October 4. That date was postponed several times by the Labor court to today. Today, hundreds of young medical residents have resigned, despite an appeal from Prime Minister Netanyahu - who out of fear of the precedent it will set has tried to leave the matter to his surrogates - to delay their resignations for two weeks so that he may become involved.

According to Army Radio, a total of 260 residents did not show up for their morning shifts: 104 at Ichilov Hospital at Sourasky Medical Center, 71 at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, 77 at Rambam Medical Center [out of 110 according to Israel Radio. CiJ] and eight at Bnai Zion Hospital.

Following the failure of the negotiations to produce a solution to the labor dispute, the sides had been expected to meet at the National Labor Court on Monday, where the state will likely request an injunction be issued against the resignations.

Thus far, the National Labor Court has declined to let residents resign over what they claim are unfair conditions agreed upon in the Israel Medical Association’s nine-year labor agreement with the employers, which was signed at the end of August.

After walking out on the talks with the Finance Ministry, the medical residents' representatives expressed frustration with the Treasury's "failure to understand the reality of the situation" and called on Netanyahu to intervene.

Without a compromise, all the sides have much to lose, as the physicians would not be given their jobs back once they carried out their threats to leave, and the Health Ministry desperately looked for other doctors to fill their places.

But there was a big surprise this morning. The government hospitals assumed that they could at least cover for the absence of the residents with senior doctors, but the senior doctors' union announced this morning that they would not cover. And just to sweeten the pie, the medical students announced that they will not start school on October 23 unless this is resolved. That would mean a delay in the readiness of the next rounds of medical residents to take their positions.

Doctors here are grossly underpaid. On the other hand, limiting services to emergency cases (and I'm not even sure there are enough doctors to provide those except in the short term) is likely to turn a lot more patients into emergency cases, or worse. Doctors shouldn't be on strike. They also shouldn't be treated like sanitation workers or baggage handlers.

Unfortunately, the real solution - getting the government out of the business of negotiating with the doctors and allowing the free market to work - cannot be implemented quickly enough. It's going to take a lot of goodwill - which is currently lacking - from all sides to make the system work.

Some of you might be wondering who the Minister of Health is. There isn't one. As I have mentioned once or twice before, ministries are handed out to political parties based on who needs to be in the coalition, and ministers don't necessarily know anything about the particular ministry in which they work. The Health Ministry is run by Deputy Minister Yaakov Litzman who - as part of the coalition agreement - has no minister above him (Litzman is from United Torah Judaism, which in principal takes only deputy ministries and the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee). Would things be different if there were a medical professional in charge of the Health Ministry? Possibly, but I have my doubts. In any event, we have heard much less from Litzman in this crisis than we have from the doctors, the finance ministry and the Prime Minister's office.

So if you're in Israel, please try to stay healthy. And if you're a doctor living abroad who has dreamed of making aliya, this might be your time to try to cut a deal.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, doctors' strike, Israeli medical care, medical residents, Yaakov Litzman

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:55 PM