In the face of worsening labor strife at public hospitals in Israel, a ministerial committee decided Tuesday to add $5.3 million to the Health Ministry’s budget.
The stop-gap measure, previously opposed by Finance Minister Moshe Nissim, was taken as the committee came under scathing criticism from doctors for “foot-dragging and political shenanigans” since its formation earlier this month in response to the ongoing health care crisis.
Medical personnel at the state-run hospitals and those of Kupat Holim, Histadrut’s health care agency, announced an all too familiar tactic to protest the committee’s alleged procrastination.
Effective Tuesday, the public hospitals went on a strict Sabbath schedule. Only emergency cases were being admitted and only life-saving procedures were being performed.
Dozens of public hospitals all over the country are to be struck according to a daily roster drawn up by the doctors. Individual hospitals will not know in advance when they will be affected.
The physicians apparently hope the inconvenience to the public will bring pressure to bear on the ministers for a solution that will meet their demands.
They complained that after nearly three weeks of dickering, the committee has produced no solutions to the health care problems, most of which are wage-related.
The panel is chaired by Premier Yitzhak Shamir and includes Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Finance Minister Nissim and Health Minister Shoshana Arbeli-Almoslino.
BATTLE BETWEEN HEALTH AND FINANCE
Up to now, its deliberations have been marked by mutual recriminations between the health and finance ministers. Nissim has been adamant against wage hikes for government employed medical personnel. The health minister is more sympathetic.
The decision to supplement the Health Ministry’s budget, which presently stands at $28 million, may have been a victory for Arbeli-Almoslino, a compromise or an act of desperation.
The committee announced Tuesday morning that it is setting up a “professional team” of senior officials “to sit day and night and work out a compromise between the various proposals.”
This group is supposed to report to the committee “within a day or so.”
But the troubles are spreading. The nurses union announced Monday night that beginning in July, it will be sending its 12,000 members on “organized summer vacations” at a rate of 3,000 at a time. The nursing staffs at public hospitals will thereby be reduced by 25 percent over the summer.
The top brass of the major unions met Monday for the first time in six years to discuss the effects of the hospital crisis on their members. The meeting was attended by union leaders representing the government-owned Israel Electric Corp., the military industries and Bank Leumi.
In other labor news, violence broke out Tuesday in Tel Aviv when employees of the financially troubled Alliance tire factory in Hadera demonstrated angrily outside Histadrut head quarters. Three police officers were injured.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
