Medical residents were expected to announce their next move Monday after negotiations between with the Finance
Ministry failed on Sunday, with the residents expected to tender mass
resignations. Medical
residents scheduled a press conference for later Monday.
Hundreds of residents across the country did not show up for work on Monday. At Rambam Medical Center in Haifa some 70
residents -- out of over 120 that had earlier tendered their
resignations -- did not show up.
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Medical residents agree to postpone resignation by 48 hours Additionally,
a number of residents did not show up for work at Meir Medical Center
in Kfar Saba. Heavy delays were reported in the pediatrics division due
to the medical residents not arriving.The resignations of some 700 medical residents
were scheduled to go into effect on Monday. Following the failure of the
negotiations to produce a solution to the labor dispute, the sides were
expected to meet at the National Labor Court on Monday, where the state
will likely request an injunction be issued against the resignations.
Thus far, the National Labor Court has declined to let residents resign
over what they claim are unfair conditions agreed upon in the Israel
Medical Association’s nine-year labor agreement with the employers,
which was signed at the end of August.
After walking out on the talks with the Finance Ministry, the medical
residents' representatives expressed frustration with the Treasury's
"failure to understand the reality of the situation" and called on Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene.
Without a compromise, all the sides have much to lose, as the physicians
would not be given their jobs back once they carried out their threats
to leave, and the Health Ministry desperately looked for other doctors
to fill their places.
To prevent outright chaos in the event that the residents resign from
their posts in the wards and emergency rooms, the Health Ministry opened
a situation room in its Rehov Rivka office that would coordinate and
make arrangements for specialists to fill the holes; ministry officials
know that the arrangements would be only temporary.
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich and Joanna Paraszczuk contributed to this report.