At 2 am Monday night, medical resident representatives rejected the proposal, presented by National Labor Court president judge Nili Arad, to freeze the resignation letters that have not yet come into effect, while negotiations with the government are taking place.
Judge Arad will announce her final ruling today. She is not expected to issue injunctions to cancel the resignations, however she might accept the state's request to stagger their starting dates. The staggering of resignation dates will harm the residents' struggle, since it will weaken their power and split them into groups. Hospital directors in central Israel said in response that such an action would only increase residents' bitterness and would not help in reaching an agreed-upon solution any faster.
Ministry of Health director general Prof. Roni Gamzo told the court, "If 700 medical residents in the health system quit, there will be no health system."
Netanyahu supports giving salary raises to doctors who accept the "full-timer" plan
In an announcement yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed hospital managers involved in negotiations to raise salaries by thousands of shekels per month to young doctors so that they could focus solely on their residencies in the hospital. Earlier, Netanyahu met with Deputy Minister of Health Yakov Litzman and Ministry of Finance officials, some of whom threatened to resign if Netanyahu instructs them to grant the salary raise against Ministry of Finance's opinion.
The announcement said, "The goal of the proposal is to improve the medical residents' economic conditions and to upgrade the public health system for the good of Israeli citizens. These additional few thousand shekels will be given to those doctors who choose to remain in public medicine and do not move over to private medicine."
It seems that Netanyahu understands that the period of the agreement cannot be shortened, nor can the amount be changed. He supports a solution being offered by the Ministries of Finance and Health officials: the salary increase will be given only to doctors working full-time for the public health system: they must work overtime, and not work at all in private clinics. This support from Netanyahu is likely to take a little bit of the sting away from the residents' bite, who were relying on the idea that direct pressure on Netanyahu would help further their cause.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 11, 2011
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