Ministry ‘ready’ if medical residents resign en masse

If they do not take back their letters, hospitals will suddenly have fewer doctors to fill job slots, especially on nights and weekends.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
DOCTORS AT Kaplan Hospital 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
DOCTORS AT Kaplan Hospital 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Health Ministry issued instructions on Monday to directors of 10 government and Clalit Health Services hospitals for functioning in the event that some 800 medical residents make good on their threats to resign on October 4.
If they do not take back their letters by then, Sheba, Rambam, Assaf Harofeh, Wolfson, Bnei Zion, Meir, Rabin, Schneider, Kaplan and Sourasky Medical Centers will suddenly have fewer doctors to fill job slots, especially on nights and weekends.
Those who signed personal letters of resignation are protesting against the terms of the settlement signed by the Israel Medical Association and the government at the end of August.
There are hospital departments that will suffer from distress if the resignations are carried out, wrote Dr. Chezy Levy, head of the ministry’s medical administration. The ministry aims at minimizing the disruptions in the provision of medical services.
Ambulatory services and elective surgery will be reduced, and vacations and trips by hospital directors and department heads will be canceled.
The ministry also issued details about the reduction in the number of night and weekend shifts for medical residents working in the periphery to six monthly – a benefit worked out in the new agreement – as well as financial benefits for doctors who agree to study for a specialty in which there is too little manpower.
Asked what they plan to do if they resign, many of the residents said they would look into work in the biotech industry or consider leaving the country for medical posts and study abroad.