The disruption of public health services continued this week despite appeals to physicians from President Chaim Herzog and Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira to end their 10-day-old strike.
The walkout in a salary dispute involves some 24,000 doctors employed by government hospitals and clinics and by Kupat Holim, Histadrut’s health care agency.
It has taken the form of a “rolling strike” in which medical services are reduced to the barest minimum in a different part of the country on different days.
Over 1 million people in the greater Tel Aviv area were virtually without medical services Tuesday. The Jerusalem and Haifa areas were affected on Monday.
The Israel Medical Association met Tuesday evening to decide where to strike on Wednesday. Its negotiations with the Finance and Health ministries remained deadlocked.
The physicians replied that it was a moral and halachic principle that doctors should be paid a decent wage.
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