Doctors threaten with a strike: demand more staff and resolve budgetary crisis in hospitals

The Medical Federation announced on Sunday evening a labor dispute that will apply to the entire public health system in Israel. The dispute was declared as a result of the non-allocation of standards required to meet the workload during the Corona period and due to the Finance Ministry's decision to impose on hospitals part of the funding of additional standards, which is expected to deepen existing deficits and require layoffs. Finance Minister Israel Katz and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein will hold a meeting tomorrow with representatives of the Medical Federation in order to regulate all issues.
The Medical Association also clarified that the causes of the conflict include the intention to dismiss in bad faith doctors employed in hospitals through health corporations, partial payment to some doctors during the corona period, deduction of sick days from doctors who had to stay in isolation and lack of indemnity for doctors who had to spend a lot of money on children. When disabling frames.
If the parties do not reach an agreement within two weeks - the Histadrut will open organizational measures to the point of a general strike of 28,000 doctors in hospitals and community clinics.
"While the whole world is now strengthening the health systems and medical staffs, finance officials in Israel are engaged in the same wars of control and ego, and in the same tricks that pull the blanket from side to side," said the chairman of the Medical Association, Prof. Zion Hagai.
Hagai called on Health Minister Edelstein and Finance Minister Katz to intervene and prevent further organizational measures. He said, "The Medical Association acted stately throughout the crisis while fully mobilizing from the first moment, but if anyone thought we would stand aside in the face of harm to the medical community and the general public - we would have to blame him."
About three weeks ago, the Histadrut Brothers and Sisters went on strike in protest of the lack of thousands of standards for the health system and the settlement of issues related to wages and conditions. At the end of a day of strikes, agreements were reached with the Ministry of Finance on an outline for dealing immediately with the shortage of workers.
Under the agreement, 2,000 nursing standards will be absorbed beyond the existing standards, of which 1,600 for the inpatient system and 400 for the community and public health system, in order to cope with the loads in which the system is located.
Another reason for the labor dispute is the budgetary crisis the hospitals ran into during the Corona crisis. "The intention of the hospitals and health corporations working alongside them to fire doctors out of coercion and contrary to their professional position and current needs, is as a result of an acute budget crisis following the Corona crisis and the lack of adequate budgeting by the Ministry of Finance and the Israeli government. Of the hospitals, without adequate budgets being transferred that will enable their day-to-day and proper operation. "
It should be noted that the Ministry of Health last week assigned 400 standards to new doctors and nurses in hospitals, who have already been notified of the number of standards assigned to them. However, the standards do not see the standards as a solution to the doctors' distress. The management of one of the hospitals told Ynet that they received more than 100 standards of nurses, but in practice they need three times that. "Doctors in the medical institutions are inconsistent with what was said this week at the zoom meeting we held, according to which the Ministry of Health will assign 600 standards," wrote Prof. Zion Hagai, chairman of the Hari, to the director general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levy.