The Israel Nurses Union and Treasury wage officials were having "important negotiations" on Tuesday night, union chief Ilana Cohen told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday night, but she did not give any details or predictions whether the nurses’ sanctions would enter their third day or be halted.
The sanctions were called over the Treasury’s failure to reach agreement on a new labor deal and increase the number of nurses. The Health Ministry’s medical administration made its first statement on Tuesday night, saying that there was a "significant decline in activity in the hospital surgical theaters that have caused serious reductions of 30 percent to 50% in the public hospitals and Clalit Health Services.
Only cancer patients and other urgent patients have undergone surgery in the last two days. In addition, a serious slowdown has been felt in outpatient clinics, and the queues for examination and treatment have lengthened considerably, it said.
Internal medicine departments are heavily occupied with patients suffering from complications of winter-connected conditions, but they are receiving treatment, the Health Ministry said. The ministry’s recommendations that everyone over the age of six months get a flu shot is even more important now.
Some hospital emergency rooms are very overburdened, while others have shown a decline of patients because patients are aware of the nurses’ sanctions and have kept away.